White Canary - War for Redemption
by a-delacroix
Summary: Added Ch 9. 'Felicity AKA Schrodinger's Cat' - My take on the upcoming Legends of Tomorrow series based on the preliminary trailer. Of course, this story will likely diverge since it isn't limited by the same restrictions as far as what DC characters can guest star or by the special effect limitations of a TV show budget.
1. Chapter 1

My take on the upcoming Legends of Tomorrow series based on the preliminary trailer. It starts with Sara Lance's resurrection via the Lazarus Pit and then moves forward as the various members join the team.

Author's Note: As always, I own none of these characters. I am merely borrowing them while waiting for _Legends of Tomorrow_ to start.

White Canary – War for Redemption

Chapter 1 – Resurrection

The sudden light was blinding. Before that moment there had been nothing but darkness. Darkness and never-ending pain.

The girl awoke having no idea where she was or even who she was. All she had were fading memories of having been somewhere hot, hard, horrible.

"Sara, Sara, my Sara, you are back."

The words registered, but not their meaning. But they were enough to draw her more fully into the world.

She was floating in some kind of a pool filled with an oily liquid that slithered across her skin almost as though it was alive. Opening her eyes, she realized the blinding light was nothing more than a half dozen torches mounted around the perimeter of the pool, which was located in some underground chamber or cavern carved from living rock.

And leaning over the edge of the pool was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen, a raven-haired girl with eyes brimming with tears. Even with the tears, the girl looked like an angel.

The girl looking down at her was unlike anything in the girl in the pool's limited memories, which only held shattered glimpses of creatures of horror: monsters and demons with distorted, disfigured bodies. All of them had viciously tortured her for what had felt like endless, countless millennia. But none more than a red-skinned demon who had looked like a twisted caricature of a woman with giant obscene breasts, hideous raptor-like claws in place of fingers, and wild horns protruding from her forehead.

That demon had been the final one to torture her and it had been bad. Her body had been broken to bits and then reformed only so the torture could begin again in some new and even more horrific way. And it had lasted an eternity. From somewhere a name floated to the surface of her thoughts even as her body shuddered at the only vaguely remembered horrors. _Blaze_. And then the demon's final words, 'This is not over. I _WILL_ have your eternal soul.'

The girl at the pool's edge leaned out and caught the floating girl's shoulders and pulled her over to the edge of the pool. Gently, as though she was some impossibly delicate thing, the brunette carefully lifted the other girl from the waters and pulled her into a tight embrace.

"Sara, my love, after all this time, I finally have you back," the brunette keened as she slowly rocked the other girl, her tears falling on the blonde's still wet cheek.

The girl from the pool, Sara, could feel the other girl's joy almost like a physical force radiating from her body, but it meant little to Sara and did nothing to alleviate the remembered pain that still racked every inch of her being. Where was she? Why was she here? It must somehow involve this other girl, but she had no idea who the girl was or why she was so happy to see her. And _happy_ was a concept Sara could barely comprehend and certainly didn't feel. Well, maybe she could feel it just a little in the sense that no one had been burning her flesh or breaking her bones these past minutes. Yes, perhaps the lack of pain could be regarded as happiness.

As the brunette continued to rock Sara and with nothing else on which to affix her attention, Sara's eyes swept the room. The place felt old and regularly used, with dark soot stains from the torches covering the intricate carvings on the walls and pillars supporting the tall ceiling.

Lying near them on the floor was a large piece of coarse cloth that obviously had once been white, but was now a dingy tattered grey, stained and thickly matted with dirt. From somewhere the term _death-shroud_ popped into Sara's head. Death-shroud, a cloth used to wrap a dead body before it was interned into the earth. Staring at it, Sara felt a sudden powerful connection to the ravaged piece of cloth. It had been her death-shroud.

It seemed to take forever for her brain to take the next logical step – if she had a death-shroud, then she must have been dead.

"I was dead," Sara whispered.

"Yes, Sara, you were dead," replied the other girl quietly. "But now you are returned to me."

She had been dead. And that had to mean the memories had to be of Hell. She had been in Hell. She had no idea for how long, from her perspective it had seemed like eons. The concepts of Heaven and Hell were barely within the grasp of her shattered mind. But if she had been in Hell, then she must have done some great evil.

But now she was back among the world of the living, whatever exactly that meant.

"Is this real?" Sara whispered.

The other girl pulled back until she could look into Sara's face. "Yes, Sara. It is real and you are alive."

Sara. It must have been, no, must _be_ her name, the blonde thought. But it triggered no memories.

"Who . . . who are you?" Sara whispered, as she searched the other girl's face.

The other girl's fingers had risen and swept Sara's wet blonde hair away from her face. But now, as a frown creased the brunette's gorgeous brow, her fingers froze in place just lightly touching Sara's cheeks.

"Don't you remember me?" the brunette asked in a pleading tone. "I'm Nyssa. You're my best friend, my paramour. We were meant to be together forever. It has taken months to bring you back."

A harsh shudder shook Sara's body. Forever was a term she now associated with her time in Hell and the eternity of pain and suffering.

Sara didn't know exactly what the other girl, no she must now think of her has Nyssa, what Nyssa made of the shiver, but she abruptly pulled Sara back into a tight hug. Somehow the closeness helped to calm the blonde, to still the racing heart she hadn't even noticed.

"Everything will be alright. I'm sure your memories will come back with time. And if they don't, then we'll make new ones, happy ones," whispered Nyssa.

Sara hoped this Nyssa was right, but she had serious doubts. She could feel a coldness, a darkness deep inside. And she could still faintly hear Blaze's words echoing in her mind, 'I will have you.'

They sat there and Sara let Nyssa hold her. Sara had no idea for how long. Compared to the time in Hell, it felt infinitesimally short.

Abruptly, the tranquility of the moment was shattered when the large, heavy wooden door at the far end of the chamber slammed open and ten heavily armed men streamed in and formed a double line between them and the door. They were followed by another man who was obviously their leader. He swept down the corridor of men before pausing a dozen feet from them.

Nyssa scrambled to her feet, pulling Sara with her, and then reached down to retrieve a black cloth bundle. She shook it out and it was apparent it was a robe. It wasn't until she moved to drape it across Sara's shoulders that Sara noticed she was naked.

The robe should have relieved any fears about being naked in front of these men, but it didn't. No, to Sara the black cloak felt suffocating. It carried unbearable associations with her dark times in Hell. Naked was better than being clothed in the suddenly hated black. She quickly stripped off the cloak and threw it as far from her as she could. One corner of it landed in the pool.

The leader only permitted himself one quick glance at Sara's nude body before speaking in a commanding tone. "Kneel before Ra's al Ghul."

Something about his voice tickled at some almost forgotten memory in Sara's damaged mind in a way even Nyssa hadn't done. She knew him from somewhere. She had had dealings with him in the distant past.

"You're . . . you're Al Sa-Her," Sara stated with more confidence than she felt.

Sara could feel Nyssa smiling. Obviously, if Sara remembered Al Sa-Her then her memories weren't all gone forever.

"I once was Al Sa-Her, but now I am Ra's al Ghul," the leader said. "Now, bow down to ME!"

Nyssa dutifully got down on her knees and then lowered her head to the stone floor. However Sara couldn't follow suit. Something about him didn't seem worthy of her subservience. She didn't know what it was, but at some time in the past he had done her a great wrong. She had no idea what it was, but simply knew it was true. And until she knew what it was, Sara would never kowtow to this man.

But then Sara's attention was drawn to the third guard in the left row. Something had simply felt wrong about him from the moment he had entered the chamber. Now, as she stared directly at him, his countenance seemed to shiver. One second Sara saw a hooded man with a fighting staff in his right hand and a sword at his belt. In the next, she saw a hellish figure with cloven feet, a long tail, and a serpent's forked tongue.

"Demon!" Sara screeched and rushed forward. It had to be a minion of Blaze sent to keep her under observation. And any creature of hers had to be destroyed.

For a second the blonde's unexpected action took everyone by surprise, even the leader. As she raced passed him, she snagged the sword from his belt.

Then Sara charged at the demon. He barely had time to get his fighting staff up to parry her first blow. Sara felt strong, fast, and powerful in a way she doubted she had ever felt in her prior, forgotten life.

Her first blow sliced cleanly through the hard wooden shaft and nearly took the demon's right hand with it. But the creature was fast. It tossed the remnants of the staff in her direction and by the time Sara swept it clear, the demon had its own sword out.

Blows rained back and forth. The demon was inhumanly fast, but so was the girl. She didn't know if it was a lingering aftereffect of her resurrection or her time in Hell, but Sara, too, fought like some possessed demon.

Slowly, Sara stripped away the demon's defenses. Piece by piece its armor was ripped away. Then she began landing blows on its arms and legs and torso. Finally, she managed to deliver the coup de grâce, a sword thrust directly through its black heart.

The demon crashed to the floor, its body bursting into intense blue flames that in seconds utterly consumed it. The demon was well and truly dead – sent back to its master in Hell.

Sara allowed the tip of her sword to droop to the floor as she stood trying to catch her breath.

"Seize her. No one kills one of my assassins," shouted Ra's al Ghul.

Sara turned towards him with what she was sure was a dumbfounded expression on her face. Hadn't he seen the demon? Hadn't he seen its fiery immolation?

But then, when Sara flicked her gaze back to the spot where the demon had been, all she saw was the crumbled body of the guard. Had the demon been real? Was she going crazy? Was she still trapped in Hell only now a different looking one?

One of the guards armed with a bow fired an arrow in Sara's direction. She swept her sword up in a blinding arc and easily blocked it. Then the other guards were on her and she was fighting for her life. And regardless of what this place was, it was infinitely better than the place she had been. No way was Sara going to allow them to send her back.

Sara fought and fought. And the guards died and died. And every time one of them died, she watched as a giant ethereal demon hand reached up through the floor and dragged their souls kicking and screaming down to Hell. And over it all, Sara heard Blaze's insane cackling as her own actions just added to the demon's horde of minions.

But it was either continue to send the guards' souls to Hell or end up there herself. And once in Hell was definitely more than enough.

The fight didn't last more than three minutes. By the end, bodies were strewn everywhere and only Nyssa, Ra's, and Sara were still standing.

Sara pointed the tip of his own sword in Ra's direction. "Leave this place now or join your men in Hell!" she snarled.

He took one last look at the destruction the girl, the former Ta-er al-Safar of the League, had wrought. She had died as a victim of one of his old schemes when he had been at odds with the League and before his return to head the League. Now she had been reborn through the powers of the Lazarus Pit. He had seen others use the healing powers of the Pits, hell, he had even used them himself. But he had only heard old legends of their power to restore life to the dead. And he had assumed it would be like what had happened to his daughter, Thea, when she had been submerged in those mystic waters at the last cusp of life. But he knew Sara had been dead and buried for at least six months. Six months. How was that possible? The legends he had heard said the longer the recipient was dead the more the Pits changed them. And from the way she had simply crushed his best men and from the crazed look in her eyes, he knew this portion of the old stories also had to be true.

Ra's al Ghul, the former Malcolm Merlyn, always put his own interests first. And he knew when retreating was the best option. He would gather sufficient forces to truly overwhelm her and then return. It was obvious from the girl's actions and words that her memories of her old life were incomplete or surely she would have attacked him in retribution for his daughter's having killed her. But at some point, her memories would return or someone would tell her of the circumstances of her death. If he let her survive, he and Thea would always be at risk. Therefore Sara had to be destroyed this very night.

And perhaps it was time for Nyssa to go, too. The daughter of the former Ra's had always followed every order he had issued. But if she had gone behind his back to recover Sara's body and then brought it to Nanda Parbat to restore her to life, then the League no longer held her ultimate allegiances, which alone was sufficient grounds for her execution. Yes, it was time to eliminate both of these girls and then make certain their bodies were in no condition to ever be brought back by the Pits again.

All these thoughts flashed through Ra's mind in the time it took him to reach into his cloak and pull one of the smoke grenades he always carried as part of his personal arsenal. He threw it at the floor halfway between his and Sara's locations. When the smoke cleared, he was gone.

Sara lowered her sword and cast her gaze around. She had just sent nine mortal souls to an eternity in hell. Perhaps ten souls, if the first had merely been a man and the demon only a figment of her damaged mind. It left a foul taste in her mouth. When the day finally arrived that she was killed and once again found herself at the gates of Hell, how much worse would be her punishment? What had she done in her prior life, she wondered, that had landed her there in the first place?

Slowly, in her peripheral vision, she saw Nyssa approaching. When Sara turned and looked in her direction, Nyssa momentarily ground to a halt with obvious fear in her expression. Then, as Sara watched, the tall brunette took a deep breath, straightened her back, and walked slowly closer.

"Sara, are you alright?" she asked almost timidly.

From Nyssa's expression, Sara wasn't certain if she was asking about her physical condition or her mental state. And she didn't blame her.

"The first man I killed, did you see a man or a demon when he died?"

"A . . . a man," Nyssa said, hesitantly.

'Great,' thought Sara. 'So either only I can see demons or I am crazy.' Neither was a pleasant thought.

Sara was just staring blankly in Nyssa's direction, obviously her thoughts were elsewhere. Slowly, Nyssa raised the cloak she had retrieved somewhere along the way.

"You need to put this on and we need to get out of here before Merlyn rounds up more troops and tries to take you again."

Sara's thoughts were dragged back from her memories of Hell, where they had once again wandered. Would she always be plagued by those horrid memories? But then the glimpse of the black robe threatened to pull her back into that time of darkness and the associated never-ending pain. "No. I can't wear black. It brings back too many horrific memories of my time in Hell."

"Hell?" Nyssa echoed at barely more than a whisper.

"Where do you think I have been while I was dead? Sitting on some cloud strumming a harp? No, I spent endless eons in Hell being continuously tortured."

Nyssa took a step back. She took in the expression on Sara's face and her words sank in. Sara truly believed she had been in Hell while she was dead. And perhaps she had been. Who knew what really happened to your soul once you died. Nyssa had traveled to every secret corner of the world as part of her assignments for the League and had encountered countless religions and their associated beliefs about the afterlife, but had no idea, which, if any, were true. But Sara had really been to the afterlife and had returned. Perhaps she had been in Hell; the haunted look in her eyes since the moment she had first awoke in the Pit made it impossible to dismiss.

Sara took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and then slowly let the breath out. When she felt more under control, she opened her eyes and looked at Nyssa again. She tried to force a smile, but she wasn't sure she was completely successful.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been so harsh. It's just my time in Hell still feels more real than being here. And, at least to me, that first man I attacked really appeared to be a demon. And then I was forced to watch as each man's soul was dragged down to Hell as I killed them. I don't want to be sending people to Hell. And I don't want to go back there myself."

By the end, Sara could feel tears running down her cheeks. And that was the first moment she really felt alive again.

Nyssa dropped the robe and pulled Sara into her arms. For nearly a minute, Sara clung to her.

Nyssa gently stroked Sara's back as the blonde sobbed. Feeling tears welling up again in her own eyes, Nyssa finally pulled back. "We still need to get out of here before Merlyn returns with more men."

Sara nodded and taking Nyssa's hand stepped towards the door.

"And you are still going to need clothing," Nyssa said in a forced attempt at levity. "You can't spend the rest of your life wandering around naked, as much as I love the view."

Sara nodded with a forced smile of her own. "Okay, but just nothing black."

"What color would you prefer?"

It took only a second to decide it needed to be the color farthest from black. "White. I think I can wear something white."

Nyssa grinned. "The only thing I think I have in white is one of your old negligées. It will be barely a half-step from being naked, but it will have to do for now."

Sara still had no recollection of the girl walking next to her. She wondered if a frilly, lacy scrap of cloth would trigger any memories like the death-shroud and Ra's al Ghul had. Hopefully, if it did, they would be more pleasant ones.

End of Chapter 1

Author's Note:

Since they have announced _Legends of Tomorrow_ , I thought I might do my own take while we are waiting for the show's arrival. It will probably follow the general path of what we saw in the trailer with a disparate group of individuals being forced to work as a team. And in this story Sara is definitely not going to be the Sara Lance/Canary from the earlier seasons of Arrow.

Back in the day, when Buffy died, she was in heaven until she was brought back to life. Given some of the things she had done in her past, I don't think Sara ended up anywhere as pleasant. Per DC canon, anyone who has been dead for a long time before entering the Lazarus Pits comes back to life damaged/changed. I thought it would be interesting if Sara believed she was in Hell during that period of time and now has a connection to Hell that no one else who hasn't been dead can quite believe or fully grasp. Therefore she brings a unique ability to the team that none of the others have and which might be useful against some of the opponents they will face. I am trying to use the DC universe's version of Hell where the demon Blaze was one of the demons continually battling for control of that dark realm. Her human guise, Angelica Blaze, may eventually make an appearance in this story.

Coming Soon – Chapter 2 – Timemaster


	2. Chapter 2 - Timemaster

Chapter 2 – Timemaster

Nyssa turned a lever in the dimly lit passageway and a door sprang open leading into a luxuriously decorated chamber. Shortly after leaving the large room with the pool where Sara had been reborn, Nyssa had opened a panel leading into a secret passageway. As soon as they had moved into the hidden corridor and the door closed behind them, Nyssa had visibly relaxed. Obviously, Ra's and his men didn't know of this secret route.

As Nyssa moved quickly over to the room's main entrance and lifted a heavy bar into place to reinforce the door's lock, Sara let her eyes sweep around the chamber. The room's furnishings were predominately dark and heavy, the colors mostly burgundy with a trimming of gold. Only scattered items showed a feminine touch – a small vase of flowers, a modest vanity with an array of perfumes and ointments, a framed photo of Nyssa and a girl with blonde hair laughing together. Sara felt drawn to the photo and as she moved closer she passed the large mirror on the wall behind the vanity. Her gaze flicked to it and it wasn't until she saw herself that Sara realized she didn't even remember what she looked like.

Blue eyes, high cheek bones, full lips, a dimple on the chin, and a scattering of freckles not dissimilar to Nyssa's – Sara felt more than a hint of surprise when she realized she might actually qualify as attractive. The eons spent in Hell had left her believing she must look like some kind of monster.

Sara picked up the photo from where it rested on the vanity and looked at it more closely. It was only after seeing her own reflection that she realized the blonde in the photo was her.

"That photo was taken when we were on an assignment for the League in Paris. Does it bring back any memories?" asked Nyssa, as she moved to a large, heavy, old trunk at the foot of the bed.

Sara's eyes flicked from Nyssa back to the photo. If she hadn't seen her reflection in the mirror, she wouldn't have known it was her. The picture of them together proved Nyssa had known her in her old life, but it didn't spur any memories. Sara took in her own bright smile and guessed it meant she had been happy, but try as she might she got nothing else from it. Oh, she seemed to have access to some generalized knowledge as she simply knew Paris was the capital of France and home to the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, but she had no recollection of ever having been there.

"No, I'm afraid the photo doesn't bring back anything," Sara said. "Sorry."

Nyssa frowned, but said nothing and just continued to pull things from the trunk. A pile of carelessly stacked clothing formed beside her until she had emptied at least three-quarters of the trunk's contents. Then she lifted out a large tray revealing a small, almost secret compartment. From this compartment she withdrew a small bundle wrapped in a piece of burgundy velvet. Carefully, she unwrapped it. Inside was something made of silk, the color of old, long faded bones. She carefully lifted the item to her face and inhaled deeply of its scent.

"This is the only thing of yours I still possessed after I found out you had died," she whispered. As she rose to her feet and moved in Sara's direction, Sara could see her eyes were again filled with tears.

This had to be the negligée she had mentioned before. It was folded into a small bundle many layers thick, but Sara could still clearly see Nyssa's fingers straight through it. It had to be the sheerest, most gossamer thing she had ever seen. The simple existence of such a delicate thing almost boggled her mind, which was still filled with harsh, hard memories of Hell.

Carefully, Nyssa unfolded it and then helped Sara slide it down over her head and onto her body.

Once Sara's hands were lowered to her sides, she looked down and then moved back over to the mirror. Nyssa's earlier remark had been accurate. Wearing this negligée wasn't much different than being naked.

Nyssa stepped up close behind the other girl. In her heavy, heeled boots she towered a full head taller than Sara. She rested her chin on top of Sara's head and then casually wrapped her arms around Sara as though she had done it countless times before.

"Does it bring back any memories?" Nyssa asked to Sara's reflection in the mirror.

Sara closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, taking in Nyssa's scent and that of the negligée.

"Do you have a matching one, only in burgundy?" Sara asked before the image of the two of them performing the dance of love in the adjacent bed had even fully coalesced in her head.

"Yes," Nyssa replied softly. Then she leaned down and lightly kissed Sara's right ear before whispering. "Do you remember the last time we wore them and then how we removed them?"

Sara's body was responding to her words, to her light caresses. An image of them laughing and teasingly removing each other's gowns using just their lips and teeth was just forming when a harsh pounding on the room's door abruptly brought her back to reality.

The pounding quickly escalated from the sound of fists to the sounds of large bodies throwing themselves against the obstacle. Even heavily braced, the door wouldn't withstand that level of abuse for long.

With just one lingering, regret-filled glance at their reflections, Nyssa sprang to the far wall which held a huge display of weapons where any more normal girl would have had a large display of shoes. Quickly, she grabbed several small weapons and added them to the sword she already was wearing at her belt. Then she grabbed a fighting staff and a sword, both of which she tossed in Sara's direction. Somewhere between there and the pool room Sara had discarded Ra's personal sword, something she clearly shouldn't have done.

"We've got to go," Nyssa said while moving to where the entrance to the secret passageway still stood open.

"Does that lead to a way out or just back to where we started?" Sara asked.

"It has several exits, but none are all the way outside the fortress. But we stand a better chance popping out somewhere unexpected rather than just standing here and fighting."

Sara had just started to move in her direction when she noticed how the air in front of the room's main door began to shimmer. Quickly, within a couple of seconds, it coalesced into a solid white sphere six feet in diameter. Then, after a couple more seconds, the solid, opaque white faded, revealing a clear, transparent sphere. Inside sat a man in a reclined chair, surrounded by a plethora of hardware, some of it optical in nature and glowing in an array of colors while other portions were mechanical in origin and spun and whirred like something from a bad steampunk novel.

Nyssa and Sara could do nothing but gawk as a large hatch in its side popped open and the man leaned over until his head was clear. With a grin, he gave Nyssa a quick once over and then gave Sara's near-naked state a more lingering inspection before his expression sobered under the ever increasing sound of multiple men attempting to break through the door.

"Come with me if you want to live," he exclaimed before breaking into a fit of laughter. When he got himself more or less back under control he added, "God, you don't know how long I have been waiting to use that line."

"Who are you?" demanded Nyssa before Sara could react. And she already had her sword out and was holding it in a menacing manner.

The man raised his hands in mock surrender. "I'm Rip Hunter, Timemaster. I'm here to rescue you. Well, actually, I'm not here so much to rescue you as to recruit you to join a team I'm pulling together to help me with a little project. Well, not such a little project, it's more along the lines of saving the bloody planet, both now and in the future. Well, and in the past, too, probably."

The man had blue eyes, a mop of tawny blonde hair and spoke with an accent that sounded vaguely, but not exactly, English. He was oddly dressed with a light tan leather duster over a brown tweed suit with a poorly matched black and grey striped shirt adorned with a 19th century cravat. He looked like someone attempting to appear steampunk but not quite fully grasping the concept.

"Well, are you coming?" asked the man. "If you stay here, there is an extremely high probability you will be dead in the next, ah . . ." he paused to glance down at some instrument inside the sphere, "next fourteen minutes, thirty-seven seconds."

Sara glanced at Nyssa. The brunette made a gesture with her hands and shoulders that implied his estimate of their life expectancy was probably about right.

Sara started moving towards the sphere. "How does this work?"

"You are going to have to get in the sphere with me," he responded. After seeing the dubious expression on Sara's face, he added with an infectious grin after sweeping his gaze up and down her near naked body again, "It will be a tight squeeze, but I guess I can make the required sacrifice."

From somewhere deep inside an unexpectedly sharp retort came bubbling to the surface of Sara's thoughts. But before she could let it escape, the room's door started to give way to the repeated pounding. Ra's and his men would be in the room in only seconds.

Sara hit the hidden catch which broke the fighting staff down into two smaller pieces, thrust them and her sword through the opening towards the far side of the sphere, and dove onto the guy's lap. Nyssa piled in on top of her, further crushing Sara up against the man's body.

The sphere's hatch slammed shut and then the man began worming his hands around the girls to reach the controls.

"Watch the hands, mister," snarled Nyssa. "Or you'll get a personal demonstration of my mastery of the art of the _Death of a Thousand Cuts_."

"Sorry, no offense meant, ladies," he said and Sara could still hear the humor lacing his words, "Just trying to reach the controls to get us out of here."

The humor of the situation struck Sara, too. Her near-naked breasts were firmly pressed against his left arm from one side and Nyssa's leather clad breasts were pressed against his arm from the other side. As the sphere returned to the solid, opaque white she had initially seen, she started to laugh for the first time since her return.

Sara had no idea where they were going or what was going to happen next, but it was wonderful just to be alive.

End of Chapter 2

Coming Soon – Chapter 3 – Prince Khufu and Princess Chay-Ara, Guardians of Ancient Egypt


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – Prince Khufu and Princess Chay-Ara, Guardians of Ancient Egypt

Part 1

The sphere's exterior remained a solid white for at least sixty seconds, long enough that their jammed together position was shifting from humorous to awkward. Finally, the sphere went back to transparent and Sara could get a glimpse outside through the gaps between the capsule's equipment and Nyssa's body. The sphere was suddenly filled with light and she could see the green of vegetation. They were somewhere out of doors in broad daylight. It made an abrupt change from Nyssa's almost dark and gloomy bedchamber in the League's hidden fortress.

With a sharp pop of equalizing air pressures, the sphere's hatch hissed open. Immediately, the sphere filled with hot, humid air. The air was ripe with the smell of vegetation and the dank decay that Sara mentally associated with a tropical jungle, although her limited memories contained no recollections of ever having been in a jungle. Still, she must have been, if her mind had conjured up that association. At least it was one more hint that some of her old memories were still there, if she could just start accessing them.

Since she was on top of their little pile of bodies, Nyssa extracted herself from the sphere first. It was a lot more cumbersome then their initial entry with hands and knees and elbows hitting Sara and Hunter in awkward locations. Once she was out, she reached her hand back in and helped Sara out next.

Hunter moved to follow, but then paused to open a small compartment inside the sphere. He rummaged around in it for a few seconds before locating and extracting several small items.

By the time he climbed out of the sphere, they were all already drenched in sweat from the impossible heat and humidity. Sara's sheer white negligée had gone from almost transparent to fully transparent as it soaked up her sweat and clung tightly to her body. Nyssa had already removed her heavy cloak and the next three layers of clothing and protective padding leaving her in just a burgundy sports bra and matching burgundy leggings.

Hunter opened his left hand, revealing three disks about the size of old silver dollar coins from the 19th century. The surface of the disks contained intricately carved patterns where the raised portions were silver and the more recessed features were gold in color.

"Take one and press them against your sternum just above the start of your cleavage. They're self-adhering."

"What are they?" asked Nyssa making no move to touch them.

When neither girl took up his offer, Hunter closed his fist and set about removing his own outer garments has he explained. "These are universal translating devices. They interact directly with your brainwaves so that you will understand any language you hear or see. And any person you are talking with will believe you are speaking in their language. They are really right jolly clever and extremely useful for adventurers like me. Makes me almost ashamed to admit I didn't think of them myself, but _borrowed_ them from a civilization up in the 42nd Century."

By the time he had finished speaking; Hunter had removed his duster, suit coat, shirt and cravat leaving his upper body covered by just a white tank style tee shirt, which highlighted his nicely muscled torso. Again opening his left hand, he selected one of the disks and pressed it against his chest just above the collar line of his tank top.

"Where are we?" asked Sara, as a shiver ran through her body despite the temperature. The heat was bringing back memories of her time in Hell, although that place had been filled with hard rocks and sprawling lava flows rather than lush vegetation.

"Ah, the correct question is actually - _when are we?_ " responded Hunter with a boyish grin that belied his apparent early thirties age.

"Okay, when are we?" asked Nyssa in a tone that implied she was a _cut-to-the-chase_ sort of person who wasn't into childish games.

Sara found herself staring at the other girl. She still had only fleeting memories of Nyssa and their time together, but she suddenly suspected the brunette's straight-forward, decisive manner was one of the things that she had found attractive about her. Well, that and the smoking hot body now obvious in her current skimpy attire.

"Well, since you asked nicely," Hunter began, maintaining the same quasi-humorous manner, intentionally or unintentionally ignoring the warning tone in Nyssa's voice. "We are in Egypt, during the time of the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, about forty-six hundred years before your time. So, unless you just happen to speak ancient Egyptian, I suggest you take one of these translating devices."

Nyssa just gave him a hard stare not certain anymore what was going on. Her life as an assassin had been hard, but in the overall scheme of things relatively mundane. She had travelled the world killing whomever she was told. Other than the Lazarus Pits, she had rarely encountered anything that qualified as supernatural. But in the last few minutes she had brought Sara back to life and then learned she had been in Hell, or at least believed she had been in Hell, the whole time she had been dead. And now this, after a mere minute in a strange sphere she was supposed to believe she was in ancient Egypt. Granted, the device had been able to instantly transport them from the Fortress in Nanda Parbat to some faraway place, but it was a huge step beyond that to believe they had traveled way back in time.

Sara could see the other girl was lost in thought, trying to grasp what the man had said. But at least to her, Ancient Egypt was still a huge step up from being in Hell, even if it was almost as hot as Hell here. Therefore, she reached out and accepted one of the offered disks and pressed it against her chest. When she gestured for Nyssa to follow suit, the other girl did, but reluctantly and with a continued frown.

"So, why are we in ancient Egypt?" asked Sara. Even though she still hardly felt like she was back in the real world, she felt a need to attempt to mediate for her two disparate companions.

"There's another girl I would like to recruit, who hasn't yet come into her true gifts. She needs something from here for that to happen. Once we have acquired that device, we'll be on our way back to the future," Hunter replied. The last part was somewhat muffled as he had leaned back into the sphere. He placed his neatly folded outer garments on the seat and then retrieved the two halves of Sara's fighting staff and her sword. Finally, after handing them to her, he reached in and extracted an ornate silver walking stick for himself.

"So, are you just going to be recruiting women like we're going to be your own little personal harem?" asked Nyssa in a dangerous tone.

"Now, now, Nyssa, don't be like that. I know enough of your history to realize you would never be into anything like that, unless, perhaps, you were the recipient of all the attention. Oh, I'm sorry, is it okay that I call you Nyssa or would you prefer Ms. Al Ghul? Or since your father is dead and no longer Ra's al Ghul, would you prefer Ms. Raatko? Or, perhaps, Mrs. Queen?"

Queen - Sara instantly knew that name held significance to her and it wasn't in connection with Nyssa. Where had she heard it before? Why couldn't she remember? And why was Nyssa suddenly looking at her with a horrified expression?

Nyssa turned back to Hunter, her eyes now dark and glittering. Her right hand pulled her sword halfway from its scabbard, which she had been holding in her left hand. "You overstep yourself, mister."

Sara quickly reached out and placed a staying hand on Nyssa's sword arm.

"Whether her memories come back naturally, or the events in her old life have to be explained to her, Sara will eventually learn the truth. And she will need to know all of it, if she is going to be able to trust you and the other members of the team from her old life. We have a good hour's hike in front of us, this is as good of time as any to make a start," stated Hunter with just a slight nervous tick visible at the corner of one eye indicating he understood how dangerous Nyssa could be.

Nyssa stood rigid for a solid ten seconds. She knew Hunter was right; Sara would need to know of her past even if her memories never fully returned. But she had hoped to start any such conversations with the times they had spent together and not with the dangerous topic of Oliver Queen and the relationship her father had forced her into.

But life seldom seemed to go the way you hoped and dreamed, she thought philosophically, as she slowly slid the sword back into its sheath.

Once Hunter saw the dangerous assassin had calmed a little, he stooped and gathered up her discarded clothing and tossed them into the sphere on top of his own. Then pressing a hidden button on his walking stick, the hatch closed and the sphere shimmered and shifted into camouflage mode. From five feet away, it was now effectively invisible. Then with a sweep of his arm he gestured in the direction they needed to head. Immediately, he set off, trusting the women would follow and giving them space for a private, necessary conversation.

"Does the name Oliver Queen ring any bells?" asked Nyssa once their small party was in motion. It seemed like one of those times where ripping the Band-Aid off fast was the best solution. And Oliver's relationship with Sara and his unwanted relationship with her _was_ at the heart of everything.

Nyssa was watching the other girl out of the corner of her eye and she instantly saw at least a small flicker of recognition. It might not have brought a complete return of her memories or even all of her memories of him, but it was more than she had experienced at seeing her or learning her name. And it made Nyssa ache inside. Why couldn't Sara have had that reaction to her?

"That name brings up images of a couple of ships, one a large luxury yacht and the other a horrid old tramp freighter. And days and days spent adrift on the ocean," replied Sara with a faraway look in her eyes.

"And what about Oliver himself? Can you picture his face or hear his voice?"

After a few seconds, Sara shook her head and Nyssa felt a small burst of joy in her heart. But she quickly quelled it; they needed to get through a conversation about Oliver and the convoluted relationship they shared before she could risk the tight control she always maintained over her heart.

"So who is Oliver? He obviously is important or you wouldn't have brought him up first," asked Sara, feeling little more than simple curiosity.

Nyssa sighed. "I guess I better start at the beginning and your connection with Oliver starts long before I was ever in the picture. But shortly after we met you told me all of your history in detail so there wouldn't be any secrets between us.

"Oliver Queen is a couple of years older than you. All through college he dated your sister . . ."

"Wait a second," interrupted Sara. "I have a sister?"

Nyssa nodded. "You have a sister, Laurel, who is a lawyer in Starling City," she stated while her thoughts turned to the tall girl. They had only become friends after Sara's death and they had mostly shared a mentor/mentee relationship as she had helped Laurel with her martial arts training. Laurel was a very different person from Sara, but the sisters definitely shared a fierce inner strength. It was probably what had let them survive all the things they had been through. Sometimes she wondered if she hadn't met Sara first, if she could have fallen for Laurel instead.

Shaking her head to clear her reverie, Nyssa continued. "Your father, Quentin, is a police officer, also in Starling. Your mother, Dinah, is a professor of Greek and medieval history at Central City University. Your parents divorced six or seven years ago."

Sara was stunned by this revelation. She had a family. Why hadn't that thought even occurred to her? She had spent so much time in Hell; nothing normal like that even seemed possible.

And then she realized they had to believe she was dead. Hell, she had been dead. She needed to get word to them that she was alive. But obviously she couldn't do anything about that while they were tramping about in a jungle in ancient Egypt. They were going to have to do whatever they could to speed Hunter's mission back here so they could return home and she could contact her family.

She could feel a stupid, loopy grin adorning her face. She had a family! But finally she forced it down and turned her attention back to the other girl. "You were saying about Oliver?"

"Oliver dated your sister all through college. Somewhere around the end of that time, you started a secret relationship with him, too."

"I was cheating on my sister with her boyfriend? He must be quite the jerk."

Nyssa shrugged. "Actually, from what you told me, you were the instigator. But Oliver could have turned you down. All men can be such jerks."

She had almost no memories yet of the other girl and therefore it was just a feeling, but Sara suspected Nyssa was strictly into girls, whereas she simply knew she was much more ambivalent about the gender of her partners. However Nyssa's sexual preference didn't in any way explain why Hunter had referred to her as Mrs. Queen. Obviously, there was a lot more going on than what she knew so far. It probably was best to let Nyssa get out the whole story and save thoughts about why she would have stolen her sister's boyfriend for later.

"Okay, so I was cheating on my sister with her boyfriend, what then?"

"Oliver's father was sailing his boat to China for a working vacation. Oliver convinced his father to let him go along. Then Oliver secretly snuck you aboard.

"There was a storm and the ship sank. You and Oliver got separated and you both thought the other was dead. You got picked up by a merchant ship run by an insane doctor with a homicidal crew. You were held captive on that ship for a year before your path reconnected with Oliver, who had been stranded on a remote island during that same period."

Despite the heat, Sara once again found herself shivering. Captive on a merchant ship for a year, she was almost glad she had no memories of those times.

"Go on."

"You and Oliver were together for a couple of months battling the bad guys and trying to escape. There was a final battle where the merchant ship was destroyed and again both you and Oliver thought the other was dead.

"With the sinking of the merchant ship, you were again adrift at sea. And that's when I found you. You had been adrift for at least ten days and were delirious from dehydration and hunger. I should have simply killed you, but I found myself drawn to you. So I took you back to Nanda Parbat with me.

"Of course, the only way you could stay in Nanda Parbat was if you joined the League of Assassins. And, at least at first, you were okay with the required training after the hardships you had endured on that merchant ship.

"But once you reached the point where you had to start using your skills, I don't think you were truly happy. Oh, you could kill and did, but you didn't have the heart of a killer. I think you spent a long time looking for any excuse to leave and when you heard your family was in danger back in Starling City, you broke with the League and ran."

Of course, Nyssa wasn't sure that was the whole truth. Yes, she knew Sara had come to hate being a killer, but she suspected Sara's decision to return to Starling had been influenced as much by word of Oliver's return as by the danger her sister and father were in.

When Sara made no reply, Nyssa continued. "In the end Oliver had been gone from Starling for five years, too, before he returned. You and he reconnected briefly, but then the League found you and forced you to return to Nanda Parbat. No one leaves the League except through death."

Nyssa paused for a moment. The next part was probably the hardest part to say. "Actually, I was the one who forced you to return. Oh, my father would have continued to send assassins after you, after your family, until you were dead, but I'll admit to being selfish, too. I wanted you back in my life. After being with you and learning what love was all about, the months you were gone were the hardest thing I had ever experienced."

The pair walked in silence for several minutes both lost in their thoughts. Finally, Sara spoke.

"And Hunters' whole _Mrs. Queen_ comment?"

Nyssa had been expecting her to ask about her death, but perhaps she wasn't ready for that particular topic yet.

"After the attempts the League made against you and others in Starling City, Oliver got on Ra's, ah, my father's radar. And for whatever reason, my father saw him as the best candidate to replace him has head of the League.

"My father was old, at least two hundred, but I never knew his exact age for certain. He still looked fit and appeared to be a man in his prime as he had been using regular dips in the Lazarus Pits to sustain his existence. But I guess he was mentally tired of life.

"I had always assumed I would be his successor, but he apparently didn't feel the same way. I'm not sure if it was simply because I was a girl or if it was due to my relationship with you.

"Anyway, after your death, father started ramping up the pressure on Oliver, directly and by threatening his family and friends. Finally, he injured Oliver's sister such that the only way she would survive was by being immersed in the Pits and he would only allow it if Oliver agreed to become the next Ra's al Ghul.

"What I didn't realize, is that he would also insist I marry Oliver to cement the transition and the family lineage. So, technically, there was a ceremony and I am married to Oliver."

Sara couldn't suppress a sudden grin. "So let me get this straight. Oliver dated my sister for years, had an on and off relationship with me, but ended up married to you, the only one of us who has no interest in men?"

Nyssa sighed. This conversation could have turned out worse. "Yeah, we're just one happy little soap opera. I had never heard of them until I spent some time in Starling after you were gone. Your sister almost got me hooked on _The Young and the Restless_ and we could have fit right in. Well, except for all the combat and deaths."

Abruptly, they heard a hiss from in front of them and realized Hunter was crouched down and gesturing for them to follow suit. Quietly, with all the stealth skills they both possessed, they made their way forward, their ongoing conversation tabled for the time being.

Part 2

Hunter was crouched down in the last bit of cover at the edge of the jungle. A wide, green plane stretched out before them. In the distance they could see a wide river.

"The Plateau of Giza," whispered Hunter.

Nyssa turned her gaze on the man. "This should all be desert. And where are the pyramids?"

"The climate is much more temperate back here then up in your time. How do you think one of the first great civilizations could have ever started here if it was nothing but desert? And the Great Pyramid of Giza, the first of the three large pyramids, won't be started until next year when Prince Khufu succeeds his father and becomes the next Pharaoh."

Suddenly, Hunter's words were drowned out as a pair of great winged figures flew by from their right towards their left. Human figures. At first, Sara thought she was back in Hell; she had seen countless winged demons there. But she didn't get the same demonic sensation from these that she had gotten from the one guard back in the pool chamber.

"What the hell?" whispered Nyssa, fiercely. What were winged people doing back in ancient Egypt? If that was where they truly were. Could this day get any crazier?

Just then a dozen chariots thundered passed, all of them with charioteers armed with bows and all of them were sending a flurry of arrows in the direction of the winged pair. And then one of the winged figures was hit and appeared to almost crumple in mid-air. The other figure barely caught the first one in time, but could do little more than slow its descent. In seconds, they were both on the ground, the second one standing protectively over the first and waving a giant mace menacingly towards the approaching chariots.

"Demons!" shouted Sara, jumping up from where they were crouched and sprinting towards the action.

Nyssa remembered what Sara had done the last time she had shouted _demon_ ; she had single handedly defeated ten of the League's best assassins. She wasn't certain if Sara meant the winged figures or the charioteers, but she knew either way she had to watch her friend's back. She quickly raced after the other girl.

Sara had never expected to encounter Blaze's minions nearly five thousand years in the past, but then she remembered how time operated differently in Hell, if it operated there at all. Certainly the handful of months she had been dead in the real world had seemed a thousand or ten thousand times longer in Hell.

But her target at the moment wasn't the winged figures, but the charioteers. At least eight of the dozen had the same shimmering countenance in her vision as the guard back in Ra's al Ghul's fortress.

The uninjured winged figure remained on the ground protecting its fallen companion; its mace and giant, dark metallic-looking wings deflecting the incoming arrows.

The chariots were circling the pair like Indians circling a covered wagon in some old western. And Sara saw that many were now unlimbering weapons that looked like throwing lances.

She didn't hesitate, but sprinted straight ahead. Her course intersected with the chariot which happened to be momentarily on the nearer side of the winged pair. The charioteer's full attention was on his intended foe and he never saw Sara make a running leap. She slammed into his side while the tip of her sword cleanly pierced his throat. Even as his body was tumbling off the back while engulfed in brilliant blue flames, Sara was grabbing the reins and pulling the horse into a tight circle to attack the others head on.

Nyssa couldn't believe what she was seeing. Most new members to the League always said it was time to put away their traditional weapons and move into the 21st Century. But anyone could use a gun. It took a lifetime to master the bow and the sword and all their traditional weapons. And that long period of training provided plenty of time to master the necessary mental régimes to be a successful assassin.

And from the day she had started training at the age of five, she had worked steadily until she had mastered every weapon in the assassin's arsenal. But her training had never prepared her to deal with chariots. God, chariots had gone the way of the dodo millennia ago. She never in her life thought bringing back Sara would mean they would end up five thousand years in the past battling chariots!

Sara had just gotten the chariot turned around when Nyssa caught up with her. Nyssa quickly grabbed the fallen charioteer's bow and then jumped on the back of Sara's chariot.

"Freaking chariots? Really?" exclaimed Nyssa, even as she grabbed an arrow from the large sleeve of arrows mounted on the side of the small platform.

Sara laughed even as she whipped the horse into motion. "That's what you get for bringing me back from the dead. I was perfectly happy rotting in Hell. NOT!"

Nyssa fired arrows through the right eye of the first three opponents before the other charioteers even seemed to realize one of their own chariots had turned on them. Two of the three burst instantly into flames and the soul of the other one was immediately sucked down into Hell, but only Sara saw that.

"Fish in a fucking barrel," shouted Nyssa before being forced to duck when one of their opponents began firing back and nearly found the range.

"Just kill them already," shouted Sara in turn. The nearest three opponents were all demons and she had no problem sending them back to their master.

But now that their opponents were aware of their presence, they became much harder targets. Nyssa only managed to wound two of the next three and the third was a complete miss as she ducked incoming projectiles and Sara had the chariot jinking left and right.

Then everything changed as an explosion ripped the air with a brilliant flash of light and a loud thunderclap of sound. It was quickly followed by a second and a third. Nyssa took a quick glance behind her and spotted Hunter using his walking stick as a golf club and using its handle to hit golf ball-sized explosive rounds a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards to land among their enemy.

Flying men and opposing chariots didn't intimidate their opponents, but exploding projectiles did. Quickly, at a signal from their largest opponent, the others began to withdraw. The one who was obviously their leader lingered for a moment. He was a big brute, standing at least six foot four. He had long dark hair and a matching beard, broad shoulders and massive pecs tapering to a slim waist. His only adornments were a giant golden collar that had to weigh twenty pounds and a white breechcloth. Sara was almost surprised that he was merely a man and that he was able to command demons.

"I have marked you," the man shouted. "And you will rue the day when we meet again."

Without another glance in their direction, he wheeled his chariot and headed off in the direction of the river.

Nyssa felt herself sag. This had been one of the most intense battles she had ever endured, even more so than the battle against the Mirakuru enhanced opponents in Starling. Chariots, freaking chariots.

Sara turned the chariot in the direction of the winged creatures even as Hunter jogged towards them from a slightly different direction. They reached them at almost the same moment.

Part 3

"Well, you just met our opponent. What did you think of him?" asked Hunter.

"Who?" replied Sara and Nyssa, in near perfect unison.

"The big guy, the one who couldn't walk away without issuing a final threat, I don't know his name here, but he goes by Vandal Savage up in your time."

"He's another time traveler?" asked Nyssa.

"Worse. He's immortal. Even here he is like 50,000 years old. By the time he reaches your time he will be another forty-six hundred years older and wiser and meaner.

"He's gone by many names down through history and the ones you will recognize like Genghis Khan, Blackbeard, Vlad the Impaler, and Jack the Ripper are among the vilest excuses for men.

"And this little firefight won't deter him for long. We need to get what we came for and get out of here before he returns," concluded Hunter.

Nyssa's gaze just turned from Hunter, to the winged man now kneeling by his fallen comrade and then on to Sara. Why did her life as an assassin suddenly seem so utterly ordinary, sane, and safe?

As they moved closer to the winged man, Sara leaned closer to Hunter. "Could you tell that some of the opponents were demons? Did you see them burst into flames when they died?"

"Demons?" echoed Hunter. His face was turning ashen as he added, "You can see demons and you saw them among Savages' men?"

Sara nodded.

"Shit. Things are worse than I thought. We are going to have to speed up my timetable and recruit even more members to the team, perhaps some of the really big guns. Thanks for the head's up."

Sara nodded again and wondered exactly what he meant by _really big guns_.

"Prince Khufu, how is Princess Chay-Ara doing?" asked Hunter towards the winged man.

After everything she had seen in the last couple of hours, Nyssa was almost surprised that the winged man was exactly that – a man with wings. He wasn't some kind of monster or creature from mythology. He wore a dark metallic helmet shaped to look like a Hawk's head and she could now see the giant wings were also some kind of dark metal. But underneath, he was a man of about twenty-five with dark Mediterranean features.

He pressed some hidden button on his companion's belt and the helmet and giant wings turned to liquid and flowed into the belt. The belt's volume didn't seem in any way sufficient to hold all that extra material, but somehow it did. Then he touched his own belt and his helmet, wings, and giant metal mace faded away, too.

And now it was clear, his companion was a woman of no more than seventeen. And it was equally clear that the arrow piercing her breast had been fatal.

"She's . . . she's gone," whispered the Prince while fighting back tears. Carefully, he reached out and gently extracted the arrow from her chest. The girl's body gave no reaction; she was definitely dead. "How can I go on?" he nearly wailed.

Hunter knelt down and rested his right hand supportively on the other man's shoulder. "You must. It's your duty to protect your people from the invaders."

Even with tears still streaming down his face, the Prince nodded. "I know, but it will be hard without my Chay-Ara."

"Who are you and how can I thank you for your help?" asked the Prince, as he rose back up into a kneeling position. "If Chay-Ara hadn't been injured in their vile sneak attack, we would have gotten clear. But with her wound she was barely able to fly and we couldn't gain the height needed to get beyond the reach of their bows. Then once she was hit the second time, there was nothing I could do and I couldn't just leave her to die alone."

Sara took a second look at the Princess' body. And that's when she saw the second arrow sticking out of the side of her left thigh.

"My name is Rip Hunter and my companions are Sara and Nyssa. It may be hard for you to accept, but we have travelled from the distant future to be here this day.

"Do you know of reincarnation – the rebirth of the same souls in new bodies allowing them to live life after life?"

The Prince nodded. "Of course, all followers of Ra, the sun god, know of the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth."

"Good," responded Hunter. "Then you will understand when I tell you the story of you and Princess Chay-Ara is the best known series of reincarnations in my time. Perhaps it is some special consequence of you both having worn the metal wings of Thanagar, but many of your future reincarnations are known. In some lives, the two of you never meet. In others you only meet when one is a child and the other in their old age. But sometimes you meet and fall in love again and live glorious lives.

"I am here on behalf of a future reincarnation of Princess Chay-Ara. She will live in a time of great peril and will need the wings of Thanagar, if she is to have a hope of surviving long enough to find your reincarnation of that time."

The Prince lowered his hand and lightly ran it along the heavy, dark metallic belt encircling the dead girl's waist.

"You do know that after we discovered the strange ship crashed in the western deserts of Libya, only Princess Chay-Ara and I were ever able to make the belts work and produce the wings?"

"I know," stated Hunter quietly. "I have no idea how the connection works, but you and the Princess and your future reincarnations are the only ones who will ever be able to make the Thanagarian belts work. I am not trying to steal her belt for myself."

The Prince climbed to his feet and then looked long and hard into Hunter's eyes before finally giving a small nod. He bent down and slowly and carefully removed the belt from his dead love's waist. Handing it to Hunter, he said, "Now, I need to take her body to Memphis so the funerary rituals may begin."

"Prince Khufu," said Hunter solemnly. "You must place her mummy in an underground chamber dug at this exact location. Then, once you are Pharaoh, you need to build your own funerary pyramid directly over this spot. You must take other wives and concubines to ensure the future of your family, but your funerary pyramid needs to be here to honor her."

With a nod, the Prince's gaze swept around, as though to memorize this exact location. Then he knelt down and gathered up his beloved's broken body in his arms and climbed back to his feet. With a touch of one finger to his belt, the hawk-shaped helmet once again encompassed his head and the broad black wings sprouted from his back. With one massive sweep of his wings he was aloft. Quickly, he climbed to altitude and then turned and flew south.

Nyssa found herself dabbing a tear from her eye. She had assassinated eighty-three men and six women during her career. And she had killed almost countless others when it had been necessary, like today. But something about the death of the Princess and the endless cycle of reincarnation the Prince and Princess would experience touched her heart.

"Right," said Hunter, interrupting Nyssa's dark, bleak thoughts. "We should hop to it before Savage rounds up some reinforcements and decides to come sniffing back around."

Then Hunter turned and started marching back towards where the edge of the jungle began about one hundred yards to their right.

Sara stepped up beside Nyssa and intertwined the fingers of her left hand into Nyssa's right hand. "Are you okay, Nyssa?" she asked.

Nyssa nodded even though tears were still streaming down her cheeks. "How much of Hunter's story do you believe?"

"Probably more of it than you do, but then I've been to Hell and then brought back to life. How much harder is reincarnation to swallow?"

Nyssa just shrugged. Sara was right; she had been through a lot more than her.

"I'll admit I still don't know what to make of Hunter and the convoluted tale he is slowly spinning out," added Sara, "But I think I am intrigued enough to stick with him for the moment."

Nyssa nodded. And with their hands still clasped, the pair set off after the Timemaster.

End of Chapter 3

Coming soon – Chapter 4 – The Nth Metal


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – The Nth Metal

Saturday, May 1, 1943 – New Orleans

Part 1

Kendra was dog-tired. It was the end of a long day after a long week in a seeming never-ending string of long weeks at work. She had been severely tempted to splurge and spend the nickel required to ride the streetcar rather than walk the eighteen blocks from the Plant to Mrs. Patterson's boarding house, which she shared with fifteen other young single women of color.

Usually, walking didn't bother her, particularly at this time of year. As the old saying went, _April showers led to May flowers and June weddings_. Gardenias, wisteria, hibiscus, and oleanders were all in full bloom. Even the magnolia trees had made an early start with the unseasonably nice weather they had been experiencing for the last two weeks. The scent of all these flowers was heavenly.

But it wasn't the May flowers that were forcing her to be extra frugal with every nickel and dime. No, it was the _June weddings_ part of the old saying. Her favorite cousin, Charlene, was getting married back home in St. Roch up in Rapides Parrish in June. Therefore she had been scrimping and saving, working extra shifts were she could, so that she could afford the bus fare and a few small gifts for her family and friends back home.

And it had been way too long since she had been home, almost a year. With the war entering its eighteenth month and with no end in sight, the plant was working two shifts, seven days a week. It was difficult to get any time off and she had had to plead and beg and trade shifts to get five days in a row off for the wedding. It had even cost her Christmas holiday to get this time off in June. But in six more weeks she would have five glorious days away, her longest break since getting the job at Higgens Industries in February of the previous year.

She had just turned nineteen at the time and had been caught up in the post-Pearl Harbor patriotic fervor. It probably hadn't helped that another cousin, Joshua, had been a cook aboard the battleship Arizona when it had gone down with the loss of almost all hands. Her mother had tried to convince her there was plenty of important, useful work she could do in St. Roch. But Kendra knew that probably would have meant ending up out in the cotton fields to take the place of some man who had gone off to war. Her parents had been the first generation of her family to escape the cotton fields in the nearly one hundred twenty years her family had been in America. Returning to the fields now would have felt like a giant step backwards for her and her family.

And, besides, she had been tired of life in St. Roch, a small town in a predominantly rural area. She had visited New Orleans twice as a teenager and had become enamored with all its bars and clubs and nightlife. Therefore, against her mother's wishes, she took the big step of moving there in hopes of working in a war production plant to do her part.

With war work rapidly expanding and everyone screaming for warm bodies, it had only taken her two days to find a position at Higgens Industries' newest plant on Jefferson Avenue and then a spot at Mrs. Patterson's. The work at first had seemed so exciting, so different from anything she had done back home. But after months and months, the work had become just a job. Oh, she knew what they did was important, building landing craft for the Navy and the Marines. But sometimes even the large inspirational photos of troops using their craft to storm the beaches in faraway, exotic-sounding places like Guadalcanal and North Africa barely helped her get through the long hours of applying varnishes and sealants and paint to the crafts' mostly plywood hulls.

And lately the fumes seemed to be getting to her as well, as she was starting to experience _the visions_ more and more frequently. She had started getting the visions when she had been just a girl. At first they had only happened once or twice a year. Her mother had said they were just a phase and she would outgrow them. But she hadn't, and the frequency had slowly seemed to increase. By the time she had left St. Roch she was getting one every month or two.

But now she was getting a vision at least once a week and sometimes several days in a row. And in the beginning they had only occurred at night and could have been confused with particularly vivid dreams. However the last several had occurred in the middle of the day and she had been forced to retreat to the ladies' room until they passed and she could give her full attention to her job without screwing up and hurting herself or others.

The visions were not all the same, but had something in common – they all involved heroic women and somehow these women were always versions of herself. Oh, they seemed to be of many different races and nationalities, but somehow they were still her. And while they were scattered throughout history, none of them ever seemed to be contemporary to any of the others.

There had been Lady Celia Penbrook, a blue-eyed blonde who had lived during the dark ages of Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire. And Kate Manser, a red-headed gunslinger in the Old West who went by the name Cinnamon. And Lady Ryuunosuke Midori, a swordmaster in Feudal Japan. And Queen Atalaya, creator of the Jaguar fighting style and ruler of the Uros Empire, an empire in the Andes of South America at a time long before the Incas or Aztec. And on and on, her visions had included countless others.

But her most frequent vision was of Princess Chay-Ara of Ancient Egypt. And this was the strangest vision of all. The other versions of her all had immense fighting skills to go along with a profound sense of justice and a duty to do what was right for their friends and allies, but they all still managed to feel like real people. Only Princess Chay-Ara seemed like something straight from some fairy tale with her enormous wings and her ability to fly.

Kendra shook her head to clear her thoughts; her trudging steps had finally brought her to the front door of Mrs. Patterson's Home for Colored Girls. Perhaps a nice hot bath would ease her aching muscles and drive away thoughts of the visions, at least for a little while.

Part 2

"Kendra Saunders, why do you always have to be such a wet blanket? I'm sure we can find a way home even if we do miss the last street car," shouted Vera Jefferson to be heard over the din of the packed crowd and the band playing a lively Cole Porter tune on the other side of the dance floor.

Two years older than Kendra, Vera was her best friend in New Orleans. They both lived at Mrs. Patterson's along with their other friend and comrade-in-arms in the hunt for husbands, Mildred Granger. Vera was a clerk in the front office at the Plant while Mildred worked four blocks over at the other nearby Higgen's facility, which built PT boats.

As usual, Vera and Mildred had ganged up on Kendra and convinced her she shouldn't just sit in her room on a Saturday night, but needed to get out and live a little. And they used the same approach that always worked on her – it wouldn't cost anything beyond the price of the street car fare, plenty of guys would be more than happy to buy them drinks.

So, as had happened on many previous Saturday nights, Kendra found herself in a club down on Bourbon Street. And at least part of the appeal was the overt illicitness of the whole situation. Back home, all the clubs were segregated. She was sure it had been the same here, too, in the good old days, but the war had changed this aspect of life the same way it had changed so much else. Hell, they had even let a trio of white boys buy them a round of drinks, although they had drawn the line at dancing with them.

"I'm tired and more than a little drunk," replied Kendra with a small giggle that only proved the _little drunk_ portion of her comment was probably an understatement. "I want to go home before I find myself waking up in some guy's room hungover and pregnant."

"Spoilsport," shouted Vera back before she grabbed Kendra's hand and headed off in search of Mildred. Vera was already a lot more drunk than her more straight-laced friend, but that's why she and Mildred always brought Kendra with them. They had seen too many girls get kicked out of Mrs. Patterson's for ending up pregnant and they didn't want to go down that path or at least not until they found suitable husbands. So, when Kendra said it was time to go home, they almost always went.

They found Mildred talking to a pair of guys in sailor suits, who had arrived at the club within thirty minutes of the start of their twenty-four hour pass from their ship, the cruiser USS Birmingham. If there had been a third sailor with them, they might have been in trouble. But with two guys for three girls, Kendra's commonsense prevailed and they quickly said their goodbyes and headed out to the street.

The nearest stop for the street car line heading in their direction was four blocks away, but four blocks and a nickel beat walking the two and half miles, particularly this late at night.

They almost made it, but unfortunately, their luck turned sour. They were passing a dark stretch of street with several storefronts that looked to have been boarded up since the height of the Depression and associated burnt out streetlights when they ran into a group of at least fifteen white sailors, most likely also off the Birmingham. But these sailors had already been imbibing something a lot stronger than beer. And these guys were looking for some action and weren't about to be rebuffed by three attractive girls even if they were of the colored persuasion.

"Please, we are good girls. Please, let us go home," begged Kendra. Neither Vera nor Mildred were in a proper state to deal with these drunk men. Kendra was afraid if either of them opened their mouths they would only make the situation worse. They had all heard stories of drunken sailors gang-raping women, and even in their drunken-state, Vera and Mildred were cowering behind Kendra and hoping a police officer or an MP would make an appearance.

"We're good boys, too," replied the nearest sailor with a leer while attempting to paw at Kendra's breast.

"I said NO!" shrieked Kendra, giving the man a hard shove and sending him reeling back into his companions, the nearest three of whom all joined him in crashing drunkenly to the pavement.

"You shouldn't have done that, bitch," screamed the first man, as he staggered back to his feet and pulled a switchblade from his pocket. "Now, I'm going to have to mess you up."

"Don't mess her up too much, Red. The rest of us want to have a little fun, too, and three are barely enough to go around as it is," requested one of the more coherent sailors.

Kendra had hoped the more somber of the sailors might restrain the more drunken of their comrades, but obviously that wasn't going to be the case. She was really afraid they were going to be badly hurt, or worse.

But then it was suddenly like she was possessed by the spirits of the women in her visions. Her right hand snapped out, seemingly of its own volition, and hit the first sailor in the arm at just the right angle to force him to drop his knife. Then she pivoted and kicked the next man in the knee cap, sending him to the ground with a howl of pain. Then the side of her left hand landed a knife-blow to the throat of a third man temporarily taking him out, too.

If the sailors had numbered only four or five, her unexpected attack might have won them through. But before she could follow up on her initial success, their weight of numbers overwhelmed her. Quickly, she found herself pinned up against the storefront, one large man restraining each of her arms while a third man began ripping at her clothing. A glance showed Vera and Mildred to already be in worse shape with the fronts of their dresses torn open from throat to knees and the men in front of them already dropping their trousers.

This can't be happening, thought Kendra, as her panic rapidly edged higher and higher. With her blouse and skirt giving way to the man in front of her, her undergarments were sure to follow in the next few seconds. Why hadn't she listened to her mother and stayed in St. Roch?

"LET . . . THE . . . GIRLS . . . GO!" commanded a woman's voice in such a hard and menacing tone that for a moment all the sailors stopped what they had been doing and simply turned and gawked.

Two white women were approaching and they were more bizarrely dressed than anything Kendra had ever seen. The blonde was wearing a diaphanous white gown so sheer all her nasty bits were easily visible even in the dim streetlight. The only time she had ever seen clothing like that was when her cousin Joshua had surreptitiously shown her and her cousin Charlene some scandalous French postcards when he had been home on leave from the Navy. She never expected to own anything as risqué herself and would have been embarrassed to be seen in anything like that even by her future husband on their wedding night.

But being seen in the outrageously sheer gown didn't seem to bother this girl, who strode forward with a look of such strength and anger on her face, Kendra wouldn't have been surprised if the sailors had collapsed to the ground in fear before the girl even touched them with the unexpected staff she was carrying just like one of the women in her visions.

However if the blonde was scary, her brunette companion was absolutely terrifying. She was dressed all in black in a heavy armored garment similar to the samurai girl in Kendra's visions. And she was armed with a dangerous looking sword that put all the sailors' knives to shame. But the most dangerous looking thing about her was the expression on her face. One look said she hated men in general and potential rapists in particular.

"They are only human," stated the blonde. "Don't kill any more than is absolutely necessary."

At the blonde's words, Kendra felt a trickle of dread run down her spine that even the threat from the sailors hadn't equaled. What did she mean, they are only human?

"Why not, we don't need to keep any of them alive to interrogate," responded the brunette, the bloodlust obvious in her tone.

"Let's get them, guys," shouted the drunkest of the sailors and the one least able to grasp the danger these two armed women represented. "Three weren't enough for all of us anyway, but five should be just about right. And I've a hankering for some white meat even more than for dark."

The sailors hesitated just a moment as the two women continued to stride forward. But, as one, they seemed to realize they were in a fight or die situation. And even in their drunken state, they weren't ready to be meekly massacred.

Except for the men still restraining the three colored girls, the rest of the sailors charged forward and the two women's weapons blurred. If not for the experience of her visions, Kendra doubted she would have been able to keep up with what happened next. The women leapt and spun, their weapons flicking left, right, forward, and aft. And every man they touched with their hands or feet or weapons instantly collapsed to the ground. Those around the blonde most often fell with a moan or a hand clenched to some damaged body part. However around the brunette they mostly fell as silent as death.

In seconds, the men restraining Vera and Mildred released their holds and turned to reinforce the rapidly depleting ranks of their comrades. Then, even as Kendra's two friends collapsed to the sidewalk sobbing and feebly trying to cover themselves with the remnants of their tattered garments, it was obvious four more men weren't going to stop these two impossible fighters any more than their dozen predecessors.

The last two sailors standing were the pair holding Kendra. Once they saw the futility of their situation, they tried to break and run. Kendra clocked the one who had been holding her right hand on the point of his chin and he instantly collapsed to the ground, but it looked for a moment like the last one was going to get away. However the brunette pulled something small and metallic from some inner pocket of her armored outer robe and threw it hard in the man's direction. To Kendra, it didn't look like a normal knife as it seemed to have four sharp pointed ends like a miniature Greek cross, but it had an effect similar to a normal throwing knife. It slammed at least an inch deep into the back of the man's neck and he reacted like he had been hammered by a baseball bat. It knocked him forward off his feet and he skidded for almost fifteen feet before sliding to a halt. It was obvious to Kendra that he wouldn't be getting up again.

Part 3

"Are you okay?" asked Sara, as she stepped up to the girl they had come to recruit. The words hadn't come out as evenly as she would have liked, as she was still almost shaking inside from the brutality of Nyssa's attack.

She had been careful to only incapacitate her opponents and Nyssa could have easily done the same if she had sheathed her blade and used the heavy scabbard instead. But despite her request, Nyssa had torn through her opponents like a scythe cutting wheat. It had made Sara wonder if Nyssa had been helplessly subject to some similar attack in the past. For the millionth time she wished her memories would return.

But even as Sara had tried to stay focused on her own opponents, she had been forced to watch as soul after soul was dragged down to Hell. She hadn't seen any signs of demons among these men, so it was possible her demonic enemy Blaze hadn't know where they were. But this sudden influx of new minions would surely give the master demon a strong clue.

The girl in front of her nodded, forcing Sara's attention back to the current situation. With dead and wounded sailors scattered all over the street, it wouldn't be long before unwanted attention would descend on this location. Where was Hunter?

Almost as though he had heard her thoughts, the Timemaster came strolling up the street, his silver walking stick still carried loosely in his right hand.

"Well, haven't you been having fun. I see you have the situation in hand," said Hunter drolly before echoing Sara's thoughts. "But it looks like we should beat a hasty retreat before your actions draw a crowd."

"Who are you people?" asked Kendra, as her eyes continued to flick wildly between her two friends still sitting in shock on the sidewalk nearby, the sailors scattered around in the street, and the three strangers standing in front of her. The massive jolt of adrenaline she had experienced in the last few minutes was helping to clear any lingering traces of alcohol that had been clouding her thoughts and actions.

"My name is Rip Hunter," stated Hunter with a curt nod of his head. And then with a gesture towards his companions, he added. "And these ladies are Sara Lance and Nyssa Queen."

The last word was said with a quick wink in Nyssa's direction, which seemed to Sara to be an extremely dangerous attempt at humor given what she had just done to so many of these men.

"Kendra Saunders," Hunter continued. "We are here to recruit you to join our little team. We are on a mission to save the world and to do it we are going to need your help."

"How . . . how do you know my name?" asked Kendra, her eyes suddenly ending their dance and really focusing on the man for the first time. And he was just as anachronistically attired as his two female companions. He was wearing a suit like many men, but it looked like something from an old Victorian movie set fifty or sixty years earlier and not something any man she knew would be caught dead wearing in 1943.

Sara was just thinking about the similarities between the way Hunter had recruited them a bare three hours earlier and what he was doing here. He appeared to intentionally wait until they were in a life-or-death situation before making his request. But then, what person in their right mind would agree to just follow some stranger in any more ordinary circumstances? If he had walked up to her in a Starbucks and suggested she go with him, she wouldn't have given him ten seconds of her time. Then she wondered what a Starbucks was and once again found herself cursing her lost memories.

"I'm assuming you've already started having visions of your previous reincarnations," stated Hunter ignoring Kendra's original question while staring directly into her eyes. He saw her eyes widen. "Ah, I see you have. Well, if you join us, I have a gift from Princess Chay-Ara."

Kendra stared at the man. The only person she had ever told about her visions was her mother and the last time they had spoken about it had been years ago. And she had NEVER mentioned Princess Chay-Ara by name. How could this man know about the Princess? And what had he meant by saying the visions were of previous reincarnations of her? Had the people in those visions truly been real?

Kendra watched as the man opened a large leather pouch that had been slung across his back on a long strap. From it he extracted a lumpy, oversized belt made of some dark, but not quite black metal. She instantly recognized it as the belt Princess Chay-Ara wore whenever she was displaying the wings in the visions.

"This belt was originally from the planet Thanagar and is composed of a material that in my time is called the Nth Metal. The spaceship of its original owner, an alien, crash-landed in the Libyan desert almost five thousand years ago. Princess Chay-Ara found the belt and somehow it bonded to her. It will only work for her or her reincarnated selves, like you.

"I have never had an opportunity to study a sample of the Nth Metal in detail, but it has anti-gravity properties in addition to granting the bearer great strength. It is psycho-reactive, meaning it responds to the bearer's thoughts. If you have had visions of Princess Chay-Ara, surely you must have seen how it allowed her to manifest wings and fly."

Kendra just continued to stare at the man. Had he truly been talking about aliens and spaceships like she had seen in the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials at the movies? But she had seen the Princess flying in her visions. If she had truly been real, then the belt the man was holding must be real, too. And if he was right, it meant if she wore the belt, she might be able to fly, too.

She pulled her gaze from the man and once again looked at the men scattered around in the street, the first few of those who had survived the battle were starting to moan and move around a little. She hated what they might have done to her and Vera and Mildred or might do to other women in the future, if given the chance. Should she don the belt and use it to help others in need? She knew if she took that step, there would be no turning back.

Then she turned her attention to Vera, who was staring about wildly, and Mildred, who was sobbing with her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

"What about my friends? What happens to them if . . . if I agree to go with you?" asked Kendra.

The man looked at the two women and then began stripping off his long leather duster and gestured for Nyssa to remove her outer garment as well. As he moved over to the nearer woman to offer her his coat, he said, "My friends will see them to the streetcar. I'm afraid that's the best I can do."

Vera stood shakily due to a combination of shock and the lingering effects of all the beer she had consumed earlier. Hunter had to help her get the coat on and then do up the front buttons until she was modestly covered. She was swaying and the bottom of the duster was so long, she in her condition was likely to trip if she tried to move. Sara stepped up beside her while Nyssa helped Mildred into her own heavy, dark outer robe.

"So are you in?" asked Hunter in Kendra's direction once her two companions were decently covered.

With one last look at the dead and wounded lying in the street, she nodded. This had to be the reason she had been having the visions all these years.

"Good," stated Hunter and then turned to Sara and Nyssa. "I'll meet you back at the capsule."

"No way are all four of us going to fit in there at once," protested Nyssa. The last two trips had already left her trapped closer to the man than she liked.

"I'll take Kendra on ahead and then come back for you and Sara," Hunter replied.

Nyssa wondered where Hunter would be taken them next, neither Nanda Parbat or Ancient Egypt seemed likely. But she just nodded.

After getting directions to the streetcar stop from Kendra, since neither of the other two women seemed totally coherent, the four women set off down the street in the direction Kendra and the others had originally been heading while Hunter and Kendra headed to the dark alley where the camouflaged time capsule had been hidden.

Sara and Nyssa escorted the two women until the sign for the streetcar stop was just visible. Several people were already waiting there, so they sent the two women on alone. Their attire would be enough to raise questions without any of the bystanders needing to see Sara in her skimpy negligée or Nyssa in her undergarments that, while covering more of her than Sara, would still be something not seen in public in this time period.

They watched from the cover of some shrubbery until the streetcar arrived and the other two women were safely aboard. Then they turned and headed back to where the time capsule had been hidden, using what cover they could find along the way.

"Do you think this might be a good time to cut and run?" asked Sara. "We could blend in here and live nice peaceful lives. Since we won't be born for another forty years, the League would have no reason to look for us here."

Nyssa contemplated Sara's words for nearly a minute as they walked. Living here with Sara would be like her dream come true. And for her it wasn't so much about being away from the League as being away from Oliver. She was still very much afraid that if Oliver walked back into Sara's life, her memories would return and she would want to be with him instead of her. Hell, even if Sara's memories never returned, she knew his magnetism might still draw the other girl back in.

But she knew staying here was nothing more than a hopeless fantasy. Hunter would never have bothered to save them if the situation in the future wouldn't be absolutely desperate. And she had given her word to help him in return for his facilitating their escape from Ra's and his men. And what did she have left besides her honor?

"Somehow, I don't think either of us were ever destined to have nice peaceful lives," Nyssa finally said in reply to Sara's question.

Sara looked at the girl who apparently had once been the most important thing in her life. She wished she could remember those times. She felt tears welling up, but wasn't certain of their exact cause.

So she just nodded and turned her gaze resolutely forward.

End of Chapter 4

Coming soon – Chapter 5 – Hawkgirl in Training


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 – Hawkgirl in Training

Part 1

"Wait here. I have to go pick up my companions and then I'll be right back," stated Hunter.

Kendra just meekly nodded. Back at the nightclub, she and her friends had known better than to even seriously consider dancing with white boys and now she had just sat on a white guy's lap inside that weird machine within the glass bubble. And she had done it with her dress in tatters. She was still more than a little freaked out.

She stood and watched as the hatch on the machine closed, the guy gave a final wave, and then the sphere turned a solid white before blinking out of existence. What had she gotten herself into? She had gone along only because he knew of Princess Chay-Ara and had shown her the belt the girl from her visions had worn. But she had never expected to end up here, wherever here was.

She was in a huge room. One side was a wall of tall windows, which were almost blindingly bright from the amount of sunlight they were letting in. It had been the middle of the night only seconds earlier back in New Orleans. Where had the man taken her?

Sweeping her gaze around, she discovered the walls and ceiling were formed from giant logs, a large bearskin rug adorned the center of the floor, and a variety of animal heads were mounted on the walls. It looked like the central hall of some grand ski lodge like she had only ever seen in the movies or in the issues of _Life_ magazine Mrs. Patterson kept in the front parlor. However those places always seemed to be teeming with people, but this space was utterly vacant.

Although she didn't see anyone, she could hear music, but it was unlike any with which she was familiar. She waited several minutes for Hunter to return, but when he didn't, she followed the sound to a wide set of double doors set in the right wall - after doing what she could to secure the remnants of her dress with the few remaining buttons and her hands. The doors were standing wide open and she moved until she could see through them. The room beyond was obviously a library with two-story tall bookshelves lining the walls. A big stone fireplace dominated the opposite wall, but on what was obviously a warm summer day, its hearth stood empty and cold.

A long heavy wood table stretched down the center of the room. A blonde woman in a scandalously short red dress, which stopped a good nine inches short of her knees, was leaning over the table with her back to the door. She was doing something with a long row of machines unlike anything Kendra had ever seen before. They were all displaying moving images like a row of movie screens, but the images were impossibly bright and the screens looked almost as thin as a sheet of paper. The music seemed to be coming from the area where the woman was working.

The woman must have sensed Kendra's presence as she abruptly straightened and turned. She was wearing glasses that made her look studious and slightly less intimidating.

"Hi, I'm Felicity. Ah, Felicity Smoak," she said while stepping forward and extending her right hand. "You must be Ms. Saunders."

Kendra still felt almost in a daze. She automatically extended her own hand, momentarily forgetting it had been holding her dress closed. "Ms.?"

The blonde's hand was cool and her grip firm.

"Oh, that's right they didn't use that term then. So, how about if I just call you Kendra?"

Kendra nodded. "Where am I?" Then she gestured towards the table before remembering the state of her dress and quickly moved her hand back to where it could clasp the gaping material, "And what is all this?"

"We are at Bruce Wayne's ski lodge in the Catskills. Apparently, Hunter has had dealings with him before and arranged for us to use this place since it is out of the way, but still not too far from Gotham and Metropolis.

"I'm just here to set up the IT gear and then I'll be heading back to Starling. And let me tell you, I can't remember the last time I have seen such an antiquated network and internet connection. At one point, I thought it was actually going to be using dial-up. I'm just glad I brought along some gear to set up a satellite connection, although it means the latency will be a bitch."

Kendra just stared at the woman. Other than the references to the Catskills, Gotham, and Metropolis, she had no idea what she was talking about.

"We're . . . we're actually in New York? I've never been out of Louisiana before."

"Yeah, we're in New York. And I've never been here before either. Well, the Catskills I mean. While I was going to school at MIT in Boston, I visited both Metropolis and Gotham, but I've never been here. I almost wish it was winter so I could spend a day on the slopes before heading back to Starling. Of course, it is probably for the best it is not winter. The only time I have been skiing was when I was in college and, klutzy me, I managed to break my arm. Eight weeks in a cast and it was such a pain trying to use a keyboard. And, of course, it would be during the semester I had the advanced C++ class with thousands of lines of code to write."

Somehow the blonde seemed to manage to say all that in a single breath. By the end, she was craning her head to look around Kendra towards the open door leading to the great room.

With hardly a pause she added, "And where is Hunter anyway? He should have given you the tour rather than just leaving you to wander around on your own."

Kendra gave a helpless shrug. "He just said he was going back to get the others."

Felicity suddenly looked at her sharply, "What others?"

"These two women, they saved my friends and me from this large group of drunken sailors. You wouldn't believe how they could fight; I've never seen anything like that. And you wouldn't believe how they were dressed either," Kendra said. Then she glanced down to the other girl's extremely short skirt and then back up to the cleavage on display. The girl wasn't particularly well-endowed in the boob department, but the dress somehow managed to take advantage of every inch she had. "Well, maybe you would believe how they were dressed, but it was like nothing I have ever seen back home."

They were interrupted by a flash of white light from the Great Hall.

"That must be Hunter, now," stated Felicity. Then she gestured towards the doorway. "Let's go see who these other _friends_ are."

Kendra gave a small nod and then just followed the other girl. She was feeling more and more lost by the minute.

As they entered the Great Hall, the three others were still in the process of extricating themselves from the tiny sphere. The blonde still might as well have been naked. Kendra was almost tempted to avert her eyes, but she knew she was never going to understand what was going on, if she spent her time staring at her shoes.

As the blonde finally straightened up, the girl beside Kendra suddenly froze and let out a startled gasp. Then she ran forward and pulled the other blonde into a fierce hug not noticing or at least not seeming to care about the other girl's attire.

"Sara. My God, is it really you? How is this possible? I saw you dead with arrows sticking out of your chest. I helped Oliver, Digg, and Laurel bury you. And that was almost two years ago."

Nyssa turned and stared hard at Hunter. "What is she talking about? Sara was only dead for six months when I used the Lazarus Pit and that was only a couple of hours ago."

"You're in 2016. That is when I needed your help."

Kendra had followed Felicity over, but had moved over nearer to Hunter and Nyssa, still feeling uncomfortable being too near the barely clad Sara.

"What do you mean 2016? That's . . . that's not possible," whispered Kendra. For a moment she wavered and thought she was going to faint like some character in a movie.

Hunter stepped closer and put an arm across her shoulder to steady her. "Sorry. I didn't have time to make it clear earlier. I'm a time traveler from the distant future. A truly evil man, Vandal Savage, is going to gain control of the planet and plunge the world into an era of darkness unlike anything ever seen, if we don't stop him. One of the key Nexus points in this struggle is 2016 and I'm recruiting people to help me in the upcoming battle. Some of these people are from 2016, but many are from other times and places although I have brought you further forward in time than most. You were the closest reincarnation of Princess Chay-Ara I could find. I figured you could cope better with a seventy-three year jump forward in time than some of your earlier incarnations from a hundred or two hundred years earlier. At least you would already be familiar with things like cars and aircraft.

"And that's why I selected this location to help you acclimate. The amount of futuristic high tech here is less than what you will encounter in most other places."

While Hunter was talking to Kendra, Felicity finally pulled back from the tight embrace in which she had been holding Sara. And when she looked into Sara's face, she saw no sign of recognition, only a hint of embarrassment at being hugged by a complete stranger.

"Sara, don't you recognize me? It's Felicity. I know we weren't like best friends or anything, but we worked together, off and on, for months."

Sara shook her head. "Sorry."

Felicity turned and threw a questioning look in Nyssa's direction.

Nyssa stepped closer, still rattled by Hunter's comment which indicated they had jumped roughly eighteen months into the future.

"Sara has almost no memories of her old life from before . . . from before her death," explained Nyssa.

Felicity's eyes flicked between the two women. "Ah, is there any chance she will get them back?"

Nyssa shrugged. "I have no idea. I've never heard of anyone being resurrected by the Pits after being dead so long. She seems to have little scattered tidbits of memory, so I'm hoping something will jar them loose. But so far that hasn't happened."

Felicity nodded. If seeing Nyssa hadn't triggered Sara's old memories she didn't know what would, except, perhaps, an encounter with Oliver. However she and Oliver were finally in a good place. She didn't want to risk upsetting that if Sara saw him and remembered her old feelings for him. On the other hand, she hated seeing Sara like this; she was almost like a ghost of her old self.

And then, when she glanced at Sara again, what she was wearing finally registered. "Good god, Sara, we need to scrounge you up some clothes!" exclaimed Felicity.

Sara looked down. "I suppose. Truthfully, it doesn't matter that much to me, as long as it's white. And it's not like I'm naked like I was while I was in Hell."

Felicity shot another questioning glance at Nyssa.

"Sara believes she was in Hell and being tortured the whole time she was dead. And now she sees demons everywhere, who she believes have been sent to drag her back there," Nyssa explained with a visible shudder.

"Just because you can't see them, doesn't mean they aren't real," insisted Sara. "And I don't think they are all sent just to get me. Some of them _were_ probably sent to keep me under observation, but others are on Earth for entirely unrelated reasons, like the ones I saw in Ancient Egypt."

"You've been to Ancient Egypt?" asked Felicity, her eyes darting between the two women and then on to Hunter. She hated being kept in the dark. How could she use her special talents to locate useful information if she didn't have all the data? And Hunter had only told her he was going to fetch Kendra Saunders, not that he was going to pick up Sara and Nyssa, too, and then take a side trip to Ancient Egypt.

But before anyone responded to her question, Hunter jumped back into the conversation. "Felicity, maybe you can take Sara upstairs and find her something more appropriate to wear and perhaps Nyssa and Kendra, too." He paused and pointed to the stairs at the back of the Great Hall. "I've laid out some clothing for them in the second, third, and fourth bedrooms on the right side of the East hallway. After everyone has had a chance to grab a shower and a change of clothing, how about you meet me back down here and we'll make a start on getting Kendra flying before we break for lunch?"

Felicity glanced at the other three women. Sara was just wearing a diaphanous negligée. Nyssa was missing her normal outer layer of clothing, but was at least decent. Kendra was in an ancient out-of-style dress that Felicity only now noticed was torn open in the front and was only held together by the girl's hands. Definitely, all three of them looked the worse for whatever recent adventures they had been experiencing.

"Fine," replied Felicity towards Hunter. "But you better give us at least thirty minutes."

Part 2

Kendra stared into the mirror in dismay. How could she join the others wearing this?

The shower had felt wonderful and it had seemed to wash away the lingering traces of their encounter with the sailors. And the shower and the rest of the bathroom hadn't felt much different from the bathrooms back home.

But the clothing was a completely different story. At first she had been certain this room had to be intended for one of the other girls. However Felicity had looked in all three bedrooms and assured her this one was hers.

The pants, if they could be called pants, were of some black stretchy material that was unlike anything she had ever felt. Once she managed to pull them on, they were skin tight and perfectly conformed to her body, accentuating every curve. The only thing she had ever felt that was remotely similar was the one pair of silk stockings she had ever owned. They had been a gift from her parents on her nineteenth birthday, which had been shortly before the American entry into the war that had quickly brought an end to personal luxury items like anything made of silk.

The top was of some similar material except yellow in front and black on the sides and back. Whatever the stretchy material was, it did a good job of supporting her breasts. Of course, the embarrassing thing was that the top seemed to cover her breasts and little else. It stopped no more than two inches below the bottom curve of her breasts leaving her entire midriff bare. And the back was even worse, just a couple of wide straps behind her neck and across the middle of her back.

She twisted and turned in front of the mirror before shaking her head. Even the swimming costumes worn in Hollywood movies set in exotic places like Rio or the south of France didn't reveal as much skin as this tight outfit she was expected to wear.

But what choice did she have? It was either this or put on her tattered old clothes, which weren't much better. Obviously, after seeing what Sara had been running around in, the dress Felicity wore, and now this, bodies were expected to be much more on display here than back home. She hoped she would adjust, because at the moment she just wanted to hide.

Deciding she couldn't just linger in her room, as much as she wanted to, Kendra moved over and quietly opened the door. Sticking her head out, she discovered the hallway was clear and slowly stepped out. She didn't know why it made her momentarily happy, as she was going to have to interact with the others while wearing this and it didn't really matter if it was in the hallway or down in the Great Room.

Kendra discovered the others were already all assembled, leaving her the center of attention as she descended the stairs. She tried to distract herself by focusing on what the others were wearing. Hunter was still in his old fashioned suit and Felicity was still in her little red dress. She felt a little better when she saw Nyssa and Sara were sporting similar skin tight outfits. Nyssa's outfit was a burgundy color and additionally she was carrying a fancy looking bow in her left hand and had a quiver of arrows and a long sword strapped to her back. Sara's outfit was completely white and she had her familiar staff in her right hand and a pair of short swords on her back.

"Ah, good, you're here," said Hunter in her direction. His eyes ran up and down her body and then he nodded. "Excellent, you look just like the old recordings I have seen."

Kendra was momentarily taken aback yet again. There were movies of her in this getup? She wished she could just crawl under some rock.

But Hunter's gaze didn't linger on her body. He turned his attention to the leather satchel that was still slung from his shoulder. After lifting the flap, he pulled out the black metal-looking belt he had first shown her back in New Orleans.

"Let's move outside where we will have some more room and then you can give the belt a try."

He headed for the front door and the women all trailed along behind. Kendra noticed Felicity had what looked like a small, miniature version of the machines in the library in her hands and that most of her attention seemed to be focused on it.

The front door let out into a wide circular drive. At the moment it held a single automobile and it was unlike anything Kendra had seen before; just one more thing proving she was a long, long way from home.

Hunter led the way to the far side of the circular drive where it turned into a single lane heading downhill, away from the house. Kendra guessed it extended the equivalent of about six blocks before it took a turn and disappeared into the trees. She let her gaze sweep around. The house was built near the upper end of a long narrow canyon. The canyon walls extended up at least a couple hundred feet and were almost completely obscured by pine trees.

"Right," said Hunter, who had apparently followed her gaze. "As long as you stay below the crest line, you should be able to practice flying without any outsiders seeing you."

Then he stepped forward and wrapped the black metallic belt around her waist. After stepping back, he added, "The main buckle has a recessed button which will cause the wings to deploy."

Kendra ran her hands along the surface of the belt, rather than moving straight for the button. The belt felt surprisingly light where it rested on her hips; certainly it couldn't weigh more than a couple of pounds. It was hard to believe that it could somehow contain the giant wings she had seen in her visions. But she had seen Princess Chay-Ara deploy and stow the wings more than once.

Finally, her finger sought out the activation button. It found it unerringly like she had done it a thousand times before. And with that motion she truly felt connected to Princess Chay-Ara for the first time. That ancient girl was a part of her, as were all the other women from her visions.

The wings flowed forth, with just a slight tingling sensation running up her back. However the helmet was much more disconcerting as it flowed up the back of her head and then down over the top until it hid the upper half of her head except for her eyes. Once it was in place, the helmet felt light, it didn't impede the movement of her head at all. However the most surprising thing was that the helmet somehow seemed to enhance her vision. Now the trees at the far end of the canyon sharpened and she could easily pick out squirrels and birds moving about in the branches at a distance that had to be approaching two miles.

Quickly, Kendra pulled her gaze away from the distant trees and back to her immediate surroundings. Her companions wore expressions which seemed to range between awe and anticipation. Her outlandish clothes no longer appeared to hold anyone's attention as their gazes were all fixed on either her wings or her helmeted head.

She was here to fly. She had seen Princess Chay-Ara do it countless times in her visions. She tried to fly, but at first nothing seemed to happen. Eventually, after nearly a minute and with sweat beading on her brow under the helmet, she realized she had levitated until her feet were about six inches above the ground, but that was it. Her wings weren't flapping and she wasn't moving up or in any other direction. Finally, when she quit trying, she slowly sank back to the ground.

"I . . . I can't do it," Kendra said, a sob almost forming in her throat. She had seen Princess Chay-Ara fly and it had seemed so effortless. But she could barely move.

"There, there," said Felicity in a supportive tone. "You at least got off the ground on your first try. That has to mean something."

"I hope you don't mind," began Hunter. "But in case this happened, I brought in someone to provide expert advice. Would that be okay?"

Kendra nodded, wondering who else Hunter might know who could fly. And if he already knew someone who could fly, why had he recruited her? The only other person she could think of, who could fly, was Prince Khufu. But if his reincarnation was already here, why would Hunter want a simple girl like her?

Hunter raised two fingers to his mouth and let out a piercing whistle that seemed to echo down the valley for almost thirty seconds.

Kendra had expected someone to join them from the lodge, but noticed how Hunter's eyes were sweeping the sky. She quickly joined him and it took only a moment for her enhanced vision to spot something, something that was absolutely impossible.

"Holy Mother of God," she whispered, louder than she realized.

Immediately, everyone else followed the direction of her gaze.

"Holy Shit!" hissed Felicity. From Nyssa, Kendra only heard the sound of her bow being drawn and from Sara the sound of her staff thudding to the ground as her matched swords rasped from their scabbards.

"Stand down, everyone," said Hunter in a commanding tone. "She's an old friend and ally."

An impossible creature was racing towards them. And it wasn't until it got close that they realized it was enormous. It landed lightly, which was impressive considering it had to tip the scale at something approaching a thousand pounds.

The creature was a sphinx – like the giant stone figure that had stood near the pyramids in Egypt since time immemorial. It had the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the head of a beautiful girl. The lion's body was much larger than any natural lion, with a shoulder height reaching eight feet above the ground and a body that stretched to almost twenty feet, not even accounting for the flicking tail. The eagle's wings had to span sixty feet, and the woman's head was in proportion with the rest of its body.

"Guys, this is Fah. She was created by a mad scientist up in the 33rd Century. After I rescued her, she has aided me on the occasional adventure. Fah, may I introduce Felicity, Sara, Nyssa, and Kendra. Kendra just got her wings and could use a little advice on how to fly."

"Ladies, it is a pleasure to meet you," said the sphinx with a surprisingly high pitched soprano voice and a nod of her large head which was adorned with a lion-like mop of blonde hair. The only thing about her face that didn't look perfectly human, excluding its much greater size, was the eyes. They were a solid gold with darker flecks and vertical slits for pupils like those of a cat.

Kendra almost freaked out when the giant creature began to speak. Its head had to be at least twelve feet above the ground, or at least until it crouched down on its haunches and even then, she had to look up to look into its face. How could such a creature, an amalgam of beast and human speak, or even exist?

"Hello, ah, Fah," Kendra got out with only a slight stutter. But if Hunter was expecting her to work with the creature, she was going to have to at least talk with it. "It is nice to meet you, too."

"Hunter called me in because he thought you might have trouble with flying for the first time. Is that the case?" asked the sphinx.

Kendra nodded. "I tried and tried, I really did. But all I did was lift a few inches from the ground. I couldn't even get my wings to flap."

"I think it is probably a simple case of overthinking things rather than letting it happen naturally. I mean do you think about every motion when you need to stand up and walk across the room? No, of course not, you just do it. I think the same thing applies here.

"So instead of thinking about flying, how about we just do a quick race," continued Fah. She climbed back to her feet, gazed around, and then lifted a forepaw and pointed towards a distant tree. "See the tree that was killed by the lightning strike? Let's see who can be the first one to touch the tip."

Kendra looked in the indicated direction and quickly spotted the tree in question. Her newly enhanced vision told her it was a mile and a half away.

She turned her attention back to the sphinx and watched it crouch down slightly. Then with a thrust of its legs and a powerful sweep of its wings, it was in the air. The sudden blast of wind from its great wings almost bowled everyone over.

Within seconds, the sphinx was a hundred yards away and accelerating rapidly.

Kendra centered her attention on the distant target, flexed her knees, and then launched like the sphinx had done, all the while half-expecting to end up on her face in the dirt. But instead, she quickly realized she was ten feet above the ground and climbing. She let out a quick laugh that was half excitement and half terror.

Part 3

Hunter led the way over to some benches along the front of the lodge in the shade of the portico so they could talk while they watched Kendra learn to fly.

"How can someone like Fah exist?" asked Felicity, her fingers busily tapping away on her tablet. "Melding together the physiologies of a lion, an eagle, and a human should be impossible let alone doing it and achieving something of that size. And by simple aerodynamics, even sixty foot wings shouldn't be able to support a body of that mass."

Hunter reached over and rested his hand on Felicity's to stop her fruitless research. "Felicity, not now. Some things you just have to accept on faith or just trust what your eyes are telling you. Science in another 1200 years will be able to achieve many things that would seem impossible now in the same way a modern passenger jet or even a simple thing like a car would be impossible for someone living in the time of the Crusades to accept."

"What about how Fah got here?" asked Nyssa, remembering the tight squeeze when she and Sara had been jammed into his machine. "No way did both you and her fit into your little time capsule."

Hunter sighed. They had more germane topics to discuss, but it was probably worth a minute or two to answer these questions so they could give him their full attention later.

"No, Fah arrived here by an alternate method. My original time travel device, the prototype if you will, was more in the form of a portal device that could open doorways through time. It worked, but the big drawback was that it required a lot of equipment back at my lab. And all doorways had to originate from my lab. I could open a doorway to the 33rd Century and have Fah travel from there back to my lab. I could then open another doorway from my lab to here. But it always required one end to be in my lab. If you happened to be on the far side of the doorway when the device was turned off, you could be stranded. Therefore, my portable time capsule is generally more useful to me.

"Now, I think that is enough on that topic for the moment. We have other fish to fry," Hunter continued by way of changing the subject. Then he turned and looked in Nyssa's and Sara's direction. "I recruited you ladies first because I have a small task you are ideally suited to handle before things will be in position for the main event."

"And what is this main event?" asked Felicity. "You arrived in Starling a week ago and all you have said is that this Vandal Savage is on a course to conquer the world and that we need to stop him. How can I help without any details?"

Hunter shook his head. "I've been in the time travel business for a long time and trust me, having too much knowledge about the future, your immediate future, is never a good idea. If you think you are guaranteed to survive at least until some event say a month from now, you might start taking stupid chances that will get you killed and therefore change everything. That's why it is important I don't give away too much."

"And, truthfully, I don't know all the details and if we are successful in stopping Savage, then the timeline will be altered and my knowledge will stop being accurate. So I am only going to give out a few tidbits to get you started and you are going to have to figure out the broader picture and what to do for yourselves."

He paused and turned back towards Nyssa. "Your sister is in possession of some information that will be key to how we proceed."

"Wait a second, I don't have a sister," Nyssa said with a shake of her head.

"Half-sister then. Her name is Talia al Ghul, although at the present she is going by the name, Miranda Tate. She is currently the acting CEO of LuthorCorp while Lex Luthor is running for President."

"How can I have a sister I've never heard of?" asked Nyssa with a confused expression on her face.

"Ra's sired her a long time ago. I don't have any exact details other than I know she was already an adult in the year 1798. She had a falling out with Ra's somewhere in the early part of the 19th century and I don't believe they ever crossed paths again. But she must have planned well ahead and managed to take one of the Lazarus Pits with her, as she has looked thirty ever since."

Nyssa couldn't believe what she was hearing. She had a sister and that sister was well over two hundred years old. She knew her father had lived an extremely long time, but not that he had had another child way back then. And once he had put Oliver on the course to succeed him, why hadn't he ever mentioned a sister before it was too late? Possibly he thought she was long dead. But no, her father would never make a mistake on a subject as important as that. If he had had a report his other daughter, this Talia, was dead, he would have verified it ten different ways before accepting it.

"What do you need us to do?" asked Sara, breaking Nyssa's spiraling thoughts.

"Felicity, is the device ready?" asked Hunter.

Felicity nodded. "It is in the library with the rest of my gear. I had to get Cisco from S.T.A.R. Labs to help with some of the details and to get the device down to a manageable size. You will need to get the device within eighteen inches of Tate's main computer on the seventy-fourth floor of the LuthorCorp Tower in Metropolis and keep it there for approximately four minutes. It should then pull the data we need from her computer or whatever storage device of hers that is holding it."

"So why do you need us?" asked Nyssa, trying to stay focused on the situation even though what she really wanted to do was to borrow Felicity's tablet and google her sister. "Can't you use your time capsule to jump you straight into her office?"

Hunter shook his head. "Luthor is a right paranoid bastard. He has electro-magnetic shielding installed throughout the tower. My time capsule won't materialize inside that building."

Hunter turned more fully in Nyssa's and Sara's direction. "We need to acquire the data tonight, as Miranda will definitely be out of the building attending a rally for Luthor's campaign in Gotham. My thought was to use Fah, as she won't show up on Luthor's radar systems. She can drop you on the building's roof and then pick you up after you complete the mission. But I'll leave the tactical details up to you, in case you have some alternate idea for how to best penetrate the LuthorCorp Tower."

Nyssa's eyes flicked to where the giant sphinx was still cavorting in the sky above with Kendra. Could she, could they, really ride on Fah's back like Bellerophon had ridden Pegasus in the ancient myths?

End of Chapter 5

Coming Soon – Chapter 6 – A Tale of Two Sisters


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 – A Tale of Two Sisters

Part 1

". . . and therefore a vote for me is a vote for a prosperous America!" roared Lex Luthor in conclusion, while raising his arms to flash victory signs with both hands.

Miranda Tate, who was standing on the platform behind Luthor and three steps to his right, struggled to stifle a yawn even as she clapped politely. Oh, the yawn wasn't strictly due to being dead tired, which she was. Running LuthorCorp would be more than a full-time job even without Lex constantly bugging her for updates on a hundred different on-going projects, from which he should have divorced himself the moment he announced his candidacy. And then there was her other job as a member of Savage's secret Tartarus organization, which also seemed to need her full-time attention. It left no time for her own personal projects, several of which had recently turned hot and also demanded a significant amount of her time. Without her nearly two hundred fifty years of experience multitasking, she didn't know how she would be able to keep so many balls in the air at once.

But none of those were the cause of her desire to yawn. No, it was listening to what was a simple variation of the same speech she had heard Lex give at least a dozen times in the last three months. Then, abruptly, she went from suppressing a yawn to suppressing a grin. Lex was running as an independent against Republican and Democratic opponents. If truth-in-advertising was a requirement for political campaigns, she had just thought of the best slogan for Lex's campaign – _LEX LUTHOR – WHY SETTLE FOR THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS_.

The general public only saw the side that Lex chose to show – a talented, powerful business mogul who had the ability to get things done. They had no idea of the true evil that filled him and the lengths to which he would go to achieve his ends. Nor were they aware of how many men he had stabbed in the back, both literally and figuratively, in his rise to power. Definitely, compared to Lex, the Republican and Democratic candidates were lesser evils.

Abruptly, Miranda's thoughts were interrupted when the phone in the pocket of her immaculately tailored business suit began to vibrate. She should have stepped up to offer Lex a congratulatory shake of the hands, but instead she gestured Lenny Norton, the LuthorCorp V.P. of Marketing and a true slime-ball, forward in her place, as she moved further back on the platform and pulled out her phone.

It was displaying a text message that simply said _Code 7-Alpha-Orange_. The seven meant there was a security breach. The Alpha indicated it was at her office in LuthorCorp Tower across the bay in Metropolis. And the Orange meant the security breach had been detected by her personally installed security system. If the LuthorCorp's security system had detected the breach, the message should have been Code 7-Alpha-Blue. Since she didn't get both blue and orange alerts, it meant whoever was trying to penetrate her office had known about and managed to bypass the more public LuthorCorp security measures. Shit.

She could alert LuthorCorp Security, but that meant she would ultimately have to explain how she knew about the security breach when they didn't. And word that she had an independent security system would doubtlessly reach Lex within minutes after that and he would immediately question what she was hiding from him. And to the best of her knowledge, he had no inkling of her involvement with Tartarus.

The rally was being held in the main ballroom of the Excelsior Hotel in central Gotham. Her jump-jet was sitting up on the Hotel's roof. If she hustled, she could be up to the roof in two minutes, the eighteen mile flight across the bay could be done in four minutes, and she could make it from the LuthorCorp Tower's roof down to her office in one minute. Yes, if she could make it to her office in seven minutes, it was better if she dealt with whatever was going on over there herself rather than call in LuthorCorp security prematurely.

That train of thought was barely complete before she was already making her way down the steps from the platform to the ballroom floor. Lex was going to be pissed by her unannounced departure, but there would be plenty of time to come up with a palatable excuse before she talked to him again.

Even as she hustled towards the nearest ballroom exit, she couldn't help but scan the crowd for _his_ face. She had only talked to Bruce once since she had taken the reins of LuthorCorp and he had barely said two words. She knew he disapproved of her association with Luthor, but since this was the first time she had been back to Gotham since then, she thought he might make an appearance. Of course, an appearance by Bruce Wayne at a rally for Lex Luthor might have been seen by the public as a tacit endorsement of Lex's candidacy and that was something she knew Bruce would never do. Therefore, on second thought, the odds of running into Bruce here were infinitesimally close to zero.

Maintaining a brisk stride down the corridor leading to the elevator, Miranda banished all thoughts of Bruce to a secret, locked corner of her mind and turned her attention to the upcoming few minutes. Quickly, she pulled her phone back out and called ahead to her pilot to have the aircraft warmed up and ready. Oh, she was perfectly capable of flying it herself, but rarely indulged in what was basically a recreational activity. No, these days her time was too valuable to waste it sitting in the pilot's seat when she could use the time to catch up on the never-ending backlog of reports she needed to read.

The weather forecast had called for overcast skies and light winds, but that was for down at street level. Up on the rooftop of the vaulting 147 story skyscraper, the wind had picked up substantially from when she had arrived ninety minutes earlier. In fact, she thought, as she grabbed the edge of her knee-length skirt to hold it in place as she raced across the open platform, the wind speed had to be getting close to the safe takeoff limit.

"Mike, are we good to go?" she shouted, as she darted through the open doorway into the small passenger compartment behind the cockpit. By the time she had the door slammed shut and her seatbelt on, the craft was already lifting into the air, giving an unspoken answer to her question. And that's what she liked about Mike Donovan; he understood when she said the situation was urgent and he acted accordingly.

Miranda was just slipping the headset into place when she felt the exit nozzles for the wing-mounted jet engines begin to pivot from the downward vertical lift position to the aft facing orientation for maximum forward motion. Then the thrust pushed her firmly back into the seat. These jump-jets were a product of Ferris Air, but only a few, select customers got the uprated military-grade engines.

"What's our ETA, Mike?" asked Miranda even as she pressed the hidden button which opened the secret weapons' locker.

"I'll have you on the pad in three minutes, thirty seconds, ma'am," the pilot replied promptly.

"Excellent. Are the winds a problem?"

"Not yet. But if they increase another six knots, things will start to get a little dicey."

"Okay," Miranda said. "Give me a warning buzz when we are thirty seconds out. I need to get changed."

Miranda pulled off the headset and quickly followed it by removing her blazer, skirt, and blouse. From a second compartment she pulled a black tank top and leggings. Over these she added a set of body armor, steel-toed boots, and then her weapons. In an unknown, potential combat situation like this she fell back to the arsenal she carried during the long ago days when she had been a member of the League of Assassins - a brace of throwing knifes, boot daggers, and a short sword on her back. But in the succeeding two hundred years she had augmented these with a Glock on her right hip, a second Glock under her left armpit, and a taser-equipped baton at the small of her back for those occasions when she needed to take at least one of her opponents alive.

When she was fully kitted out and had pulled the headset back on, her internal clock estimated she still had thirty seconds before Donovan's warning call and a minute until they would be landing on the LuthorCorp Tower roof. She spent the time doing what limbering exercises she could in the cramped compartment.

"Thirty seconds, ma'am," she heard over the headset at the same moment she started to feel the jet engines' thrust translate back from horizontal flight to vertical hover mode.

"What the fuck?" she heard Donovan exclaim only moments later just as the jet abruptly jerk to the side hard enough to toss her across the narrow width of the passenger compartment.

The craft immediately steadied.

"What was that, Mike?" Miranda asked even as she clambered back into the seat.

"Sorry about that, Ms. Tate," replied Donovan. "For a moment I thought I saw something in the glare of my landing lights. It looked like some huge beast, at least as large as the jet. But it was just a flash and then it was gone. I must be seeing things."

"Is it safe to put us down on the roof?"

"I think so, ma'am."

"Okay, do it," ordered Miranda. Then she quickly reopened the weapons locker and replaced the Glock in her shoulder rig with something a little more high tech and potent. Donovan had been with her for over five years, including being a participant in several firefights. If he thought he had seen something, then he probably had. This was starting to feel like more than your simple every-day break in.

Donovan gave her a ten second countdown. At five, she pushed open the door. At three, she stripped off the headset. At the unheard one, she dove out the door, rolled to her feet, and raced to the building's door leading to the flight stairs to the elevator one floor down.

Right outside the door, she found the crumpled body of a security guard. Whoever was in the building had to have entered via the roof. It raised the question of why their helicopter or whatever other vehicle they used hadn't been spotted. Of course, they could have arrived via stealth chutes which meant they wouldn't have been detected until they made physical contact with the roof.

Miranda paused long enough to check the guard's pulse. It was steady. The man was merely unconscious.

As she straightened, she started scratching names off the mental list of potential adversaries she had been building during the brief flight. If certain of those people were involved they definitely would have killed the guard outright to avoid leaving any potential witnesses behind. And if others on her list were involved, it would have been a full frontal attack and the whole Tower would already be in flames.

She stepped cautiously through the door into the stairwell. If whoever had penetrated the building intended to exit via the same route they had entered, this was the obvious spot to leave a rearguard. But she found no one. Oh, they could have left some kind of electronic sensor, but she didn't spot anything out of place with a quick glance and she hadn't brought the gear necessary for a more detailed search, not that she was willing to waste that much time at the moment even if she had.

Miranda raced down the stairs two at a time. She didn't even give the door leading to the elevator alcove a second glance when she reached it. Her office was only five flights further down and the stairs would be faster than the elevator. And the elevator would also do a giveaway 'ding' when it arrived at her floor.

When she reached the floor to her office, she paused, a knife already in her hand. The door was a fire exit and rigged with an alarm that would register down in the security office when it was opened. She knew what wire to cut to silence the alarm, but when she bent closer, she discovered it had already been cut and the door was slightly ajar. So, whoever was in her office had used this same route. It was one more tidbit of information to add to her growing collection.

Miranda brought up a mental image of the floorplan. This emergency exit door was near the bank of elevators. The corridor beyond the door led passed three executive Vice Presidents' offices and the boardroom before reaching, first, her assistant's office and then her secretary's office and finally reaching her own.

At 11 P.M. on a weeknight, the floor should be empty. If anyone had been working late, the intruders had doubtlessly silenced them like they had done with the guard above. Therefore it should only be her and the intruders.

She eased the dagger back into her boot and pulled one of the throwing knives instead. If she encountered anyone before she reached her office, it would be best to take them out silently before potentially alerting any others.

Miranda dropped to her knees before carefully opening the door. She knew it was human nature to more quickly notice movement at head level than something much lower. Easing her head out, she quickly scanned of the corridor. Nothing. If anyone was still on this floor, they had to be in one of the offices, hers being the most likely.

She raced forward at a crouch. All the offices she passed were dark. It was possible someone was in one of them but using only a small flashlight or night vision goggles, but she doubted it. She sped forward until she was just outside her own door. The door was closed, but she could see a line of light along the door's lower edge. Definitely, the lights were on. Someone had to be in there.

Miranda paused for a moment and listened. She heard nothing. Carefully, she slid the throwing knife back into its sleeve on the front of her chest's body armor and pulled the Glock instead. The time for stealth was over. If there were multiple intruders in her office, she could take them down faster with the gun than with knives.

Slowly and quietly, Miranda pushed the door open, her gun hand leading the way. She had barely taken a single step into the room when something hard smashed into her gun, knocking it from her grip. Before the gun even hit the floor, she realized it was half of a fighting staff and that it had been thrown from across the room. Realizing whoever was in there had the drop on her and that they hadn't yet resorted to lethal force tonight, she stepped into the room with her empty hands clearly visible.

Two women were in the room. A blonde dressed head-to-toe in white including a mask over the upper half of her face, who was holding the remaining half of the fighting staff in her left hand, and a brunette in a burgundy version of the gear worn by the League of Assassins. She didn't recognize the blonde, but even with the lower half of her face concealed by an extension of her hood, she immediately knew the brunette from old photos. The most recent photos she had were over five years old, but the girl had changed little.

"Nyssa, I wondered when this day would arrive," stated Miranda, more calmly than she suddenly felt inside. She knew the girl had been _Heir to the Demon_ for years, but then, at the last moment, her place had been supplanted by another. Miranda had no idea what that turn of events had done to the girl, but she had dropped off her radar only a couple of months later and that was over eighteen months ago. She had no clue where the girl had been since then or with whom she had been associating. And the unknown state of the girl's mind scared Miranda more than she cared to admit.

Part 2

Nyssa stared at the woman standing in the doorway. Based on the photos Felicity had dug up after Hunter's revelation, she knew the woman was her sister, or at least half-sister. And she could see some familial resemblance, although more with her father than herself. Mostly, Talia had her father's hard grey eyes, but she wondered how much of that was due to their shared, greatly extended lives through repeated immersions in the Lazarus Pits.

"Why didn't you ever contact me, Talia?" asked Nyssa. "I never even knew I had a sister until earlier today." She hadn't planned to say any of that, not that she had truly been expecting to meet her sister under these circumstances, but it seemed to just rush forth of its own accord.

"You were with your father. I'm afraid he and I didn't part on the best of terms. "

"I wasn't always in Nanda Parbat; you could have contacted me when I was away on some mission," responded Nyssa, hearing more of a pleading tone in her voice than she had expected. She had never suspected she had a sister, so why was this topic suddenly so important?

Miranda shook her head. "Your father had spies everywhere. And at least the few times I was able to track your movements, he always had men following you, to make sure you didn't get into trouble. Contacting you simply carried too much risk of reigniting our old battles and too many people had already died as a result in the past."

Nyssa almost bristled at the thought that her father would have had her followed on missions like he didn't truly trust in her abilities. And perhaps he never had. Perhaps that was why he had bypassed her and chosen Oliver. Perhaps it had had nothing to do with her relationship with Sara.

"What about after father was . . . after father was dead?" Nyssa didn't know why she still had trouble getting those words out. He had effectively stabbed her in the back not once, but twice. First, by choosing Oliver over her to be the next Ra's al Ghul and then, again, when he forced her to marry Oliver. Still, he was the only family she had ever known, or at least until now.

"I didn't learn about his death until several months later and then, when I looked, I could no longer track you down."

Nyssa nodded. Sometimes word traveled slowly in the world of the League with most of the organization set up in cells where everything was on a _need-to-know_ basis. If Talia had spies within the League, it was easy to believe it would have taken time for the word to reach them, even for something as important as a change of the person who was Ra's. And then it had doubtlessly taken additional time for Talia's agents to get clear to pass the Intel up whatever additional chain was required to reach her sister. And if it had taken Talia several months to learn of their father's death, it might not have been until after Hunter had whisked her and Sara away. It was still hard to believe they had skipped forward eighteen months in time. Obviously, if she hadn't been around during the last year and a half, it would have been impossible for Talia to have gotten into contact with her, assuming she would have even wanted to try.

"I've been away," stated Nyssa without going into any details as she doubted her sister would believe her time travel tale, as she could hardly believe it herself and she had experienced it firsthand. "But I'm back now."

"And maybe we can now find an opportunity to get acquainted," replied Miranda. Then sensing an opportunity, she asked, "Perhaps you could tell me a little about the current Demon, Malcolm Merlyn. I've never had any direct contact with the man."

Nyssa started to shake her head. She wasn't here just so her sister could pump her for information. But before she could say anything in reply, she was overridden by Sara.

"Do not refer to him as the Demon. He is just a man. There are real demons we should be worrying about."

Sara had made her unexpected announcement with such conviction, Miranda didn't know what to say, but merely swung her gaze back and forth between the two women on the opposite side of her desk.

"This is my . . . friend, Sara," said Nyssa, not certain what other term to use for their relationship. They had been so much more before Sara's death. But now, with Sara's memories still mostly gone, she didn't know exactly what their relationship was, other than it was a lot less than it had been or what Nyssa wanted. "She . . . ah . . . died. I used the Lazarus Pits to bring her back, but she was changed. She now says demons are real, but only she can see them. She says they are planning something, some kind of an attack."

"My memories might not be the same, but I am certain they are acting in league with Vandal Savage. Why else would they have been with him in Ancient Egypt?" asked Sara. "We need to be on the lookout for Blaze, she has to be the demonic ringleader of what is coming. Why else would she be trying so hard to pull me back to Hell?"

Miranda felt a tremor of dread suddenly and unexpectedly run down her spine and it wasn't about the inexplicable comment about Ancient Egypt. She was supposed to be having dinner the next evening with Vandal and his newest recruit to Tartarus, a Ms. Angelica Blaze. Could that woman have some connection to what Nyssa's friend was talking about?

Just then, the device Felicity had given Nyssa, which was resting on top of the desk, buzzed faintly, indicating it had completed its data retrieval task. The sound was enough to draw Miranda's attention and remind her that her sister wasn't here on some social visit.

"What The Hell are you doing in my office anyway? If you just wanted to meet me and discuss our common heritage, you wouldn't be skulking about my office in the middle of the night on a night when you must have known I would be in Gotham!"

Nyssa picked up the device, which was the size and shape of an old-school portable CD player, and tucked it into an inner pocket of her tunic. "We are looking for information on Vandal Savage's plans and activities. He is on a course that will be devastating for the entire planet and he must be stopped."

From what Miranda had seen, Vandal Savage was a megalomaniac of an even higher order than Lex Luthor. She had seen an opportunity for some personal gain when he had courted her to join his secret organization, so she had cautiously accepted. She knew she was only privy to a small portion of Savage's overarching plan, but she had had no inkling that whatever it was could possibly damage the entire planet.

"How could you possibly know that?" she asked with more curiosity than animosity. She never expected the reply she received.

Nyssa was trying to formulate some appropriate response, but once again Sara beat her to the punch.

"We are working with a time traveler. He knows what will happen if Savage isn't stopped," stated Sara.

Time travel? Miranda couldn't believe the blonde had just said that. But when her eyes jumped to her sister, she could simply read in her face that it was true. Suddenly, the cryptic remark about demons working with Savage in ancient Egypt made a lot more sense.

Miranda had been working with Savage for months before she had uncovered the big secret about his immortality. Other than her father, she had never met anyone older than her own two hundred sixty-seven years. Then to learn Savage was thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years older than her. It had been downright humbling.

She didn't know his exact age, but he definitely had been alive during the time of ancient Egypt. And based on their comments, Nyssa and Sara had time-traveled back there and had encountered him.

Miranda was caught in a quandary. On the one hand, her sister was here to steal LuthorCorp and potentially Tartarus secrets and for that she should be handed over to Luthor or Savage. But, on the other hand, if what she said was true, Savage was planning something that could devastate the planet. And Miranda knew he would throw her under the wheels, as the old saying went, without a second thought if it was to his advantage. How much allegiance did she really owe Savage?

But before she was forced to make any hard, life-altering decision, the situation was taken out of her hands.

An impossible blast of wind suddenly hit the room, lofting several sheets of paper into the air that had been resting on the credenza behind the desk.

And along with the wind, suddenly there was a young girl standing in the middle of the room, midway between where Miranda continued to stand by the door and the other two women behind the large desk. Even though she didn't look more than twelve, maybe thirteen tops, she was decked out in a red and black costume with a large yellow lightning bolt on the front and a red mask around her eyes. A single glance at her eyes and the visible portion of her face told Miranda the girl had a mixed race heritage with both Blacks and Asians in recent branches of her family tree.

"Hunter has been trying to get a hold of you. Apparently, Luthor has activated some damping field around the building which is blocking your communicators," said the girl. "Significant security forces will be here in twenty seconds. You have to get out now and there isn't time to use the planned route via the roof."

"Who are you?" asked Nyssa.

Miranda stared at her sister even as the young girl blurred and reappeared at the floor-to-ceiling windows along the west side of the office. She had assumed the girl was working with the others, but then why didn't Nyssa know her?

"The name's Iris West," said the girl as she raised her hands and pressed them against the window. Her hands seemed to blur and a second later the window exploded outward in a million tiny shards. Then with a grin, she looked back over her shoulder and added, "Although the public knows me as Kid Flash."

"Your ride is ready. You will just have to jump and you'll be caught," Iris continued. Then with a laugh, she added, "Hopefully, before you fall too far."

She turned as if to leave, but then Nyssa shouted, "Wait."

"What about my sister?" Nyssa asked and pointed in Miranda's direction.

Iris blinked out of existence for a second and then immediately reappeared in the same place. "Luthor has hidden surveillance cameras in this room. At this point he appears to believe she is in cahoots with you. She better come along or he will doubtlessly torture her for information."

The girl glanced down out the window again, gave a small nod and said, "Well, I've got to run. I'll probably see you again later." Then she somehow appeared to start running down the side of the building for just an instant before turning into a yellow blur. And then she was simply gone, the only evidence she had ever been there being the gaping hole in the glass wall of the office.

"What the hell?" exclaimed Miranda.

"No time," shouted Nyssa, running over to the window with Sara hot on her tail. They could all hear shouts and the sound of many booted feet running down the floor's central hallway. "We have to go, now!"

Miranda followed the two other women over to the destroyed window and stared out. She didn't see anything but the normal nighttime skyline of Metropolis and the street far, far below. Nothing like an escape vehicle was visible.

The girl in white jumped into the abyss. Nyssa grabbed Miranda's hand and then jumped, too. Before she knew what was happening, Miranda found herself falling through the air, the street, which was seventy-four floors below her office, was racing up at an impossible speed.

She was just about to start screaming when suddenly, something was directly below them. They thumped down hard onto a hard surface covered with fur. Nyssa's grip on Miranda's left hand tightened even as Nyssa's left hand reached out and grabbed a handful of reddish-blonde mane. Mane?

If they were going to be rescued, Miranda had assumed it would be by some kind of aircraft. Instead, it slowly sank in they were on the back of some giant winged animal, as crazy as that seemed. Then it got even crazier as the winged animal turned its head and looked back at them over its shoulder. In the dim light streaming from the surrounding skyscrapers, Miranda discovered the creature had a greatly oversized version of a woman's face. And then it even began to speak.

"Don't worry. Kendra caught Sara."

End of Chapter 6

Coming Soon – Chapter 7 – Speedy & the White Canary

Author's Note: Kid Flash is not the Iris West from The Flash. Per DC canon, the second Flash, Wally West, is Iris West's nephew. Wally will eventually have a daughter who is also named Iris West and who goes by the moniker, Kid Flash. In this story, Hunter has recruited Kid Flash from about twenty years in the future. I'm not sure if Kid Flash is going to be a regular member of the team, so perhaps I'll just leave it up to the readers. Tell me in a review whether or not you want Kid Flash (or any other particular hero) to be part of the team.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 – Speedy & the White Canary

Part 1

Thea slowly and painfully pulled off the last pieces of her red leather outfit and stared at her reflection in the mirror of her bath in the loft she had been sharing, off and on, with Oliver for the last two years. She remembered the horror she had felt the first time she had seen her brother without a shirt after his return from the island. His body had been covered by masses of scars and she had barely been able to imagine what he must have experienced during those five missing years.

But now, seeing the scars littering her own body, she was starting to understand. In the eighteen months since she had taken up Roy's mantle, she had been hit by bullets four times, by arrows three times, and had sustained six deep gouges from swords, knives, and other bladed weapons. Turning slightly, she examined the worst scar – a barely healed burn that extended from her right shoulder down halfway across her back that she had received while rescuing a small girl from a burning building – it made the sixteen stitches Laurel had had to use to close up the wound on her left hip tonight seem almost trivial. Her twenty-second birthday was still three months away, but already her days of wearing strapless or backless gowns were behind her. If things kept up like this, she couldn't imagine what her body would look like in another five or ten years, assuming she survived that long.

She looked longingly for a moment at the room's deep bathtub. Her body ached all over and she wanted nothing more than to climb in and let the tub's jets massage her muscles for an hour. However soaking the fresh stitches probably wasn't a good idea. Hopefully, they would at least be okay for a couple of minutes in a hot shower if she covered them. With only a slight limp from the painful laceration on her hip, she moved over to the large cabinet she had added when she had had the loft remodeled before she had first moved in. In the early days, it had been filled with a plethora of cosmetics. But slowly over time those items had mostly been replaced with medicinal supplies until the remaining cosmetics occupied only one small corner of a single shelf. A final glance in the mirror before she bent to gather something to keep the stitches from getting wet reminded her she should at least be thankful that so far her assorted scars hadn't extended to her face or neck or hands.

Pulling plastic-backed gauze and waterproof tape from the cabinet, Thea moved back over by the sink where the light was the best. Gingerly, she ran her finger along the fresh stitches. Being generous, Laurel's handiwork could, at best, be considered serviceable. The bleeding was stopped, but the resulting scar was going to be nasty and it hurt like hell. The meditation techniques she had learned from her father and Oliver and others had barely been enough to keep her from screaming while Laurel had sewed her up. It was too bad Felicity was gone on some special secret mission, as she had the deftest touch with needle and thread.

After being in on Oliver's big secret for almost two years, Thea found it hard to believe the stories of how squeamish Felicity had been in the early days of Team Arrow. Like with everything else, once Felicity had decided _medic_ was a role that needed to be filled and she was the most logical one to do it, the tech girl had thrown her full efforts into becoming the best one possible. She had studied everything she could find online about performing emergency triage and then she had taken a series of EMT classes through a local vocational school. Of course, being the tech geek she was, Felicity had proceeded to distill her knowledge into a phone app they could use in the field in an emergency. After sharing the app with Team Flash and with a few additions from Doctor Snow, _EmMed_ had gone on to become the bestselling medical app for both iOS and android. _EmMed_ and other apps Felicity and Cisco had created subsidized the operations of Team Arrow and Team Flash through the not infrequent financial crises they seemed to experience.

With Felicity unavailable, her second choice for a medic would have been Digg. While Felicity aced him in overall expertise, he more than made up for it with a better bedside manner. With John, you simply felt safe and in good hands.

However like with several others, Digg was no longer part of Team Arrow and sometimes it almost felt like the secret underground lair had a revolving door at its entrance. Some, like Sara, had died. Others, like Roy, had known it was time to move on. And some, like Digg, simply vanished. Three months earlier the tall African-American had disappeared without a word. They had searched for weeks without success. Lyla also had no clue. Even Amanda Waller from A.R.G.U.S. hadn't been able to help. Felicity had every networked cam in the country running facial recognition software, but in three months there hadn't been a single hit. It was like Digg had vanished off the face of the planet. It most likely meant an old enemy had taken him unawares and he was now buried in some unmarked grave. Thea had only known him as an almost faceless bodyguard until she had gotten sucked into Team Arrow, yet he had ultimately become perhaps her best friend on the team. Somehow, even though Digg wasn't British, he seemed to share a similar stoicism to Walter's.

Thea shook her head to clear it. Every time she was hurt her mood seemed to swing to a dark, maudlin, fatalistic place. And she simply knew what the next stop on that journey was going to be – Sara. With the bandage in place, she moved quickly over to the shower stall and cranked the water temperature up high. Perhaps, if it was almost painfully hot, it would distract her from her biggest regret, her personal ongoing nightmare. But already the restored memory of _that_ night was running through her mind's eye for the millionth time.

After learning what she had done to Sara from Oliver while they had been in the secret prison on the island, Thea had spent weeks working with a hypnotherapist to retrieve the memories that had been blocked by the Vitura drug _daddy-dearest_ had given her. However after reliving - over and over – the memory of the startled and then horrified expression on Sara's face as she fired arrow after arrow into her chest, Thea frequently wished she had left the memory buried.

Curiously, her situation seemed remarkably similar to Oliver's situation with Slade and Shado, a story which she had learned from her brother after he had finally revealed his secret nocturnal alter-ego. Even though the mad Doctor Ivo had shot Shado, Oliver blamed himself for choosing Sara and causing Shado's death. Similarly, Thea had had no knowledge or control over what she had done to Sara, but she still felt responsible. And Oliver hadn't actually pulled the trigger of the gun that had killed Shado, but she had definitely been the one who had fired the arrows that had resulted in Sara's death.

More than anything, being the cause of Sara's death was what had driven her to join Team Arrow in search of redemption. But redemption was turning out to be an elusive mistress. She had helped stop countless petty criminals and even a few master level ones, but she didn't feel even one iota closer to atoning for what she had done to Sara. She was starting to suspect nothing short of her own death would ever relieve the endless ache she felt inside. Sometimes she wished Nyssa had killed her when she had revealed to her the true story behind Sara's death.

The water turned cold before Thea realized she had been huddled on the floor in the corner of the shower crying for long minutes. Thoughts of Sara's death always seemed to do that to her. With an effort and an annoying shot of pain from her injured hip, she levered herself back to her feet and turned the freezing jets off. A glance through bleary eyes showed the temporary bandage was still in place and it wasn't stained bright red, so she probably hadn't reopened the wound.

Shivering, she had just stepped from the shower and pulled a towel from the rack to dry her short brown hair when someone began pounding on the bathroom door. Quickly, she wrapped the towel about her body and grabbed the knife from the counter where it lay next to her bow and other gear. Anywhere else she would have gone for her sword, but in the tight quarters of the bathroom, the knife made more sense.

"Speedy! Are you okay? I've been knocking at your bedroom door for several minutes."

Thea relaxed slightly on realizing it was Oliver. She lowered the knife back to the countertop.

"Yeah, Oliver, I'm fine," she called, as she glanced in the mirror and took in her puffy eyes and red blotchy skin. Yeah, right, she was so definitely not fine. But Oliver had his own demons and they both mostly pretended they were okay when in front of each other.

"Cisco has a new lead. We need to follow it up before the trail goes cold."

Before Felicity had disappeared in support of whatever project she was working, she had temporarily recruited Cisco to cover tech support. And with Digg gone and Laurel headed home to prep for a complex court case in the morning, that only left Thea to provide field backup for Oliver.

She thought longingly of just climbing into bed and sleeping for at least the next twelve hours, but that was going to have to wait a little longer. Then she glanced at the pile of discarded red leather in the corner. It was going to require some serious work before she would be able to wear it again. And that was the third outfit she had destroyed in as many months. She was just glad she had one more spare set in the secret compartment in the back of her closet. How was it that Oliver's green leathers seemed to hold up so much better than hers?

"Give me five minutes and I'll meet you down in the garage," Thea called out towards the closed door even as she began to move towards her walk-in closet.

Part 2

Thea braked her bike to a stop next to Oliver's.

The augmented display in her glasses indicated the weather-beaten old factory in the next block was their target. Quickly, now that they were within sight of it, a ghostly green overlay of the building's internal configuration appeared. A couple of seconds later, red dots that indicated human-sized heat sources were added to the image. Eight people were within the factory. Four were clustered in one room towards the back while the other four were scattered around and obviously on sentry duty.

"Are you ready for this?" asked Oliver over the audio link.

Thea slowly nodded, as her hand went up to the quiver and double checked the location of the _special_ arrows they had stopped back at the lair to retrieve. Normally, she carried twelve regular arrows, three arrows with explosive tips, and three arrows equipped with restraining webs. Tonight, six of the regular arrows had been replaced with the special chemical injector version. She didn't use them often and needed to remember to correct for their different weight and balance.

Normally, the injector arrows were only filled with a fast acting tranquilizer to knockout opponents before they could raise an alarm. However tonight they were filled with the anti-Mirakuru agent.

Thea shivered at the thought of going up against multiple enhanced men. Until tonight, she hadn't thought they were all that tough. The only time she had encountered one before had been on the train platform on the night Slade had tried to take the city. And Malcolm had taken that one down with what had seemed like relative ease. But that was before she truly grasped her father's fighting skills.

However, earlier tonight, when she had received the injury to her hip, she had had to deal with a Mirakuru-user first hand. It had been a close thing. If she and Ollie hadn't been working as a team, she wasn't certain if either of them would have survived. And now they were about to enter a building with at least four and possibly up to eight of the enhanced men.

Oliver had been surprised when they had encountered the one earlier. It had been the first he had seen or heard of since taking down Slade over two and a half years earlier. He had thought with the drug flushed from Slade's body and those of all his men, that that would be the end of it. But apparently, some other source for the drug had survived and now someone was back in the business of creating enhanced warriors.

Quickly, Thea followed suit after Oliver shut down his bike's engine and switched to electric mode to glide silently forward. It only took a minute to find a hidden location to stash the bikes.

Thea removed her helmet, pulled up her hood, and then redonned her glasses. In her earliest days with the team, she had worn a mask like Oliver, but for the last six months she had been wearing the augmented reality glasses Felicity and Cisco had put together, which were just as effective in hiding her face while providing so much more. At first, Oliver had resisted claiming they impacted his aim, but eventually even he had succumbed. In a building properly seeded with nano-sensors, the glasses allowed you to see opponents hiding around corners or to see through solid walls. The advantages definitely outweighed any slight loss in accuracy.

"Are the sensors in place?" asked Oliver through his audio link.

"I have ninety percent coverage of the building's interior," stated Cisco. "The remaining ten percent should be saturated in the next three minutes."

The nano-sensors were the size of dust motes. When there was time, nowadays they used a small drone to dump a bagful of the devices into a building's ventilation intake.

"I have coverage of the meeting in the back room, if you are able to accept the feed before moving inside," added Cisco.

Oliver sent an affirmative and a three-dimensional image began to form in their glasses. It had a ghostly aspect since Thea's glasses remained semi-transparent so she could still see her surroundings. If she adjusted her glasses to be opaque, it would feel like she was right in the room with them, but that was a dangerous thing to do when they were out in the field. And over time she had gotten used to this display mode.

Quickly, Thea tapped the fingers of her left hand together in the pattern that activated the gesture control feature built into her gloves. Slowly, she swung her view of the room around to take it in from all angles. A woman was seated behind a desk with three men standing on the opposite side. But before she focused on the people, Thea studied the room itself for possible entry points and, more importantly, emergency exit locations. Before she entered that room, she wanted to feel like she had lived there for a week so she could act without thinking if things got hairy.

"Have you run facial recognition on the woman, Cisco?" asked Oliver, obviously completing his survey of the room faster than Thea.

"Running it now," replied Cisco. After what felt like a long pause, but which probably wasn't more than ten seconds, he continued. "Interpol's facial database identifies her as a Jessica Ivo."

The name didn't mean anything to Thea, but from Oliver's reaction it obviously did to him.

"Who is she?" Thea asked quietly.

"She's . . . she's Doctor Ivo's wife. He was back on the island. He killed Shado and I, ultimately, killed him. He must have somehow gotten a sample of the Mirakuru to her before that."

Oliver had told her a little about those events on the island, but it had been shortly after she had learned his big secret and at this point, well more than a year later, that conversation was more than a little vague. But it was enough to explain how these people might have access to the dangerous drug.

"Anything on the three men?" asked Oliver.

Thea rotated her view of the room and studied the three men. Two were obviously bodyguards and the nano-sensors highlighted the handguns they were carrying. The third man, standing in the center and wearing an expensive suit, had to be their boss. She wondered if any of these were also using the Mirakuru. She pulled her view back until she could see all four occupants and then did the gesture which switched her view to thermal imaging. The woman was showing a body temperature of 104.5 while the men were all in the range between 98 and 99 degrees. She remembered Oliver saying the Mirakuru made the user's body run hot, so she surmised the men were not on the drug.

"The men on the left and right are employees of a local bodyguard firm," began Cisco. "The man in the center is proving to be more of a challenge."

Oliver and Thea tried to wait patiently while Cisco worked. Thea switched her display back to the overview of the factory and then zoomed in on the position of each of the outlying guards. All of these men had elevated body temperatures similar to the woman, indicating they probably worked for her.

"Damn," said Cisco quietly. "Other than a name, Steve Trevor, all files related to the man in the center have been restricted by A.R.G.U.S. I wish Felicity was here. It is going to take me some time, perhaps hours, to break through their firewalls and acquire any further information."

"Any idea if this guy works for A.R.G.U.S. and they are trying to acquire the secret of the Mirakuru, or if he is a bad guy they are pursuing?" asked Oliver.

"Sorry, I don't know anything besides the name at the moment," replied Cisco.

"Okay," said Oliver in reply to Cisco. Then turning more in Thea's direction, he continued. "I have no idea why Jessica Ivo is in Starling, but I don't want the city to be overrun by the Mirakuru freaks again. We'll take her and her men down with the special arrows. If we can manage to capture this Trevor guy at the same time, we'll hand him over to Waller and she can deal with him. But Trevor is definitely a lower priority.

"Let's try and take these guys out one at a time," continued Oliver, turning to the specifics of the mission. "Find yourself a high position somewhere near the first one and I'll draw him out into the open so you can take the shot."

Thea nodded. She knew he was trying to protect her and this time she wasn't going to object. Getting close to the first one earlier in the evening had been scary enough and her injury might slow her that tiniest amount that might mean the difference between winning and dying in an encounter with these enhanced men.

After unslinging her bow from where it was still attached to the handlebar of her bike, Thea attached the wire from the spool at her belt to one of the arrows and then shot it at the edge of the roof far above. A long row of windows extended just below the roofline and that was the obvious entry point for her, if Oliver wanted her up on the high ground. A quick jerk convinced her the arrow was well seated and she activated the small, powerful motor in the spool. In less than five seconds, she had been hoisted up to the level of the windows and had levered the nearest one open. In another five seconds she was using the spool to lower herself down along the inner side of the perimeter wall. Landing lightly on top of a tall pile of wooden crates, she pushed the button on the side of the spool that released the end of the wire from the arrow and then retracted the thin cable back into the device.

Studying the images in her augmented reality glasses, Thea quickly decided none of the men in the factory had noticed her arrival. Turning her attention to the nearest man she studied his position and the surrounding area. If she moved twenty feet to her left and the guard moved ten feet to his right, she would have a clear shot without either of them entering the line of sight of any of the other three sentries. Like she was diagramming a play in a football game, she used her glove interface to sketch out her plan in her display for Oliver's benefit.

"Got it," she heard Oliver faintly whisper through her earpiece. "I'll be in position in thirty seconds."

As she moved into position, and keeping one eye on the first guard, Thea focused most of her attention on planning the moves necessary to take out the next guard. It had taken awhile after joining Team Arrow before she realized she was better at, or at least more interested in tactics than Oliver. He tended to just go charging in and depended on his speed, strength, and fighting skills to win the day. But given her smaller body she was never going to match Oliver for speed or strength and only on really good days did her fighting skills match his. Therefore for her, planning and tactics were always an important factor.

And slowly, over time, Oliver had handed over the planning to her when they needed to work as a team in the field in the same way he had handed over tech aspects to Felicity even though he wasn't the complete neophyte with computers and electronics he sometimes pretended.

"I'm in position and making my move in five," whispered Oliver, breaking her near reverie.

Thea quickly pulled one of the special injector arrows, threaded it into her bow. After a silent count to five, she pulled back on the compound bow.

The target was invisible from her position, standing behind a row of crates. But via the augmented reality glasses and the nano-sensors, Thea could see him as clearly as if he was standing out in the open. She saw his head jerk around as he reacted to whatever Oliver had done to attract his attention. Then the man began moving forward in exactly the direction she needed to get her shot. The arrow was already in the air while he was still hidden from view and struck him cleanly in the neck when he was a mere six inches clear of the final obstruction.

The man reflexively jerked the arrow free, but it was already too late; the counter-agent was already in his system. Oliver rushed forward and delivered a knockout blow before the man could cry out.

"Good shooting," whispered Oliver.

Thea was already moving to the next position and only responded by sketching how she needed the next guard to move to line up the next shot.

Part 3

The same strategy worked on the next two sentries. They were just getting into position to take out the last man when Cisco shouted so loudly into the earpiece that Thea jumped.

"You must have tripped some alarm. You are about to be hit by massive reinforcements."

Those words were barely out of his mouth when with a loud bang the factory doors on the south side of the building shattered and two trucks that looked like oversized armored cars roared through the opening. Before Thea had a chance to change the view in her glasses herself, Cisco overlaid a view looking down on the expansive floor as at least a dozen men erupted from the back of each vehicle.

Thea was still up high, getting in position to take out what they thought was the last guard. She didn't have a direct view of the area where the trucks had stopped, but she knew Oliver had to be in their line of sight. Immediately, she spun and ran to where she could give covering fire, already wishing she had more than just the three remaining injector arrows. Even if she successfully deployed them and Oliver used all six of his that still would leave fifteen of the enhanced men standing. After the way they had struggled to take down the single man earlier, no way could the pair of them hope to take down fifteen. They were going to have to focus on simply getting clear and make another attempt later when they were better prepared.

By the time Thea reached the end of the stack of crates to where she could see directly down, the men were madly charging at Oliver's location. Without hesitating, she leapt off the thirty foot tall stack. While in mid-air she used her three remaining injector arrows. Then attaching the spool of wire to a regular arrow, she shot it into a nearby support column. Her booted feet were within inches of the floor when the arrow caught and sent her swinging in a long flat arc. She fired an explosive arrow into each of the trucks' engine blocks as a distraction before she reached the end of her arc. Hitting the button that released and retracted the cable, she landed on her feet ten feet to Oliver's right.

The closest six men, the three she had hit and three others Oliver must have hit, were down and out of the fight, but the others were coming on fast.

"Speedy, what the hell? You should have gotten away while you had the chance," exclaimed Oliver.

"And, what, leave you to face them alone? Not likely," she retorted, even as she used two of the binding arrows to trip up two more of the men.

She was down to six arrows and then she would have to break out her sword. And against the man they had fought earlier, sword blows to the limbs or thrusts through the torso had been effectively useless. Even these guys wouldn't be able to shake off a beheading, but she hadn't outright killed anyone since Sara. She didn't want to start now, but against these enhanced men, it might be that or end up dead. And she didn't want to die.

"Aim for the eyes," shouted Oliver even as he continued to shoot. "It won't kill them, but it should put them out of action for a while."

Remembering Slade Wilson's eyepatch, Thea quickly did as Oliver suggested until she was down to just one regular arrow and one explosive arrow. She would need the one regular arrow if she was going to use her cable to get out of there, although with some of the opponents circling around behind them, that line of retreat might already be gone. A quick glance showed Oliver was down to his last two arrows as well as he shifted his bow to his right hand to block the first man to get within arm's reach.

Thea slung her bow across her back while simultaneously pulling her sword. The katana seemed to sing as it cleared the scabbard, but with ten men still on their feet in front of them, she knew their situation was hopeless. But she wasn't going to give up without a fight.

She and Oliver swung around until they were fighting back to back to protect each other. At least for the moment, the opponents were only coming at her with an assortment of knifes and clubs and her longer sword gave her a slight advantage. But for everyone she managed to force back, two more seemed to spring forward to take their place. She knew she would be overwhelmed in less than a minute.

"What the fuck?" exclaimed an almost forgotten Cisco through her earpiece at the very moment a large section of the overhead windows exploded inward.

Thea couldn't stop herself from glancing up. The lighting was poor and without her augmented glasses she would have seen nothing but a large shadow. But the nano-sensors still drifting around the factory fed a clear image to her glasses and for a moment it was so stunning, she almost forgot all the scary men in front of her. A giant winged beast unlike anything she had ever imagined was plunging straight down at her. The vision was so startling, she instinctively ducked, which just happened to save her from the club one of the men had swung at the spot where her head had just been.

The beast landed barely eight feet in front of Thea with a thud that reverberated like a small earthquake. At least four of the opponents were crushed under its bulk and then it raised its forepaws and sent men flying through the air to crash into and through crates that exploded and crashed down like miniature avalanches.

Then, as two women she hadn't even noticed vaulted from the creature's back, it swept its massive wings and lifted into the air long enough to climb over Thea and Oliver before settling down on top of the men attacking from the other side.

The two new women, armed with bows and fighting staffs, surged forward and drove the remaining men in front of Thea back long enough for her to start to catch her breath.

Even as the giant creature behind her continued to inflict significant mayhem on the opponents on that side, another winged creature dropped into view. However when Thea looked up, she discovered this one was much smaller – human-sized. A closer looked through her enhanced glasses revealed it to be a girl with wings who was armed with a mace covered with wicked looking spikes on the ball-end. She was slamming the weapon into bodies of the men, which sent them flying.

The destruction was fast and horrible with most of the credit going to the giant winged creature. Now that she had a moment, Thea made several gestures with her control gloves. Instantly, estimates of a twenty foot body length and sixty foot wingspan appeared in her display along with a tentative identification of sphinx. Sphinx?

With that as a starting point, it was easy to see it had a body of a lion and the wings of an eagle and the oversized head of a girl. Perhaps it was a sphinx, thought Thea. But sphinxes weren't real and how could one possibly be here now? And why was it helping them?

From what Oliver had told her, men on Mirakuru weren't coherent once they lost themselves in the bloodlust. But the few that were still on their feet must have had enough sense to realize their situation was now hopeless and they quickly beat a retreat. Twenty-three seconds after the giant sphinx made its miraculous appearance the fight was over.

Part 4

"Fah, push the bodies into a pile over in that corner and then keep an eye on them. These men have remarkable recuperative powers and even if they look dead they might come back around and want to continue the fight," said a man Thea had even noticed before. The sphinx used the sharp claws on its forepaws to snag the bodies and toss them into the indicated corner of the factory.

"Cisco, where's Jessica Ivo?" asked Oliver while he panted to recover his breath.

"Gone. She was heading out a back exit before the trucks with the reinforcements even arrived. The men in the room left with her. A few of the nano-sensors were swept out with her, but they only managed to catch a glimpse of her climbing into the back of a limousine before they got too far from the rest of the swarm and I lost contact."

The tiny, tiny nano-sensors had equally tiny transmitters with a range that was best measured in inches rather than feet. They were all networked together and passed data from one to the next until it reached the master control node up at the top of the building's ventilation shaft. It meant when some of them got more than a few feet from their nearest neighbors, like when they clung to the clothing of a departing person, they quickly were out of range and effectively lost. And because of their tiny size they had a very limited endurance. Forty-eight minutes after their activation they would all be as dead as the dust motes they emulated.

"I'm Rip Hunter," said the man who had been speaking with the giant sphinx. "Felicity has been helping me with a project and I thought it was time I returned the favor."

Thea turned and took a better look at the man. He seemed way overdressed for the situation in a suit and tie. Then the unusual cut and fabric of the suit registered. It looked like something that belonged in a movie set back in the Victorian era, which made her think of the man's vaguely English accent.

Oliver had stepped up beside Thea. He was just starting to extend his right hand when abruptly his hand froze in mid-motion.

"Sara?" Oliver suddenly whispered and Thea could see his eyes had swept passed the man and on to the two women.

Even as Oliver suddenly rushed forward, Thea turned her gaze on the pair. One was wearing the robes of the League and even though she hadn't seen her for at least a year and a half, she quickly recognized Nyssa.

Then Thea's gaze turned towards the other woman, who was dressed entirely in white. Oliver had swept her into his arms and Thea didn't have a clear view of her face. She saw a sudden frown on Nyssa's face at the exact same moment Oliver turned enough so that she saw the other woman's face.

It was Sara. Sara Lance. How was that possible? Sara had been dead for over two years.

But there was no mistaking that face – the blonde hair, the blue eyes, and the prominent dimple on the chin. Thea had known her for over ten years and Sara had even worked for her at the club on a near daily basis for several months. It was definitely her.

And yet there was something odd about her, too, a weird vacancy to the eyes as though she wasn't all there. And Oliver must have noticed it, too, as he pulled back and held her at arm's length.

"Sara, are you okay?"

Sara looked at him blankly and seemed to be making an effort to extract herself from his grip. "Who are you?"

Oliver's hands seemed frozen in place. Then his gaze turned from Sara to Nyssa. His eyebrow raised in a silent question.

"I had to use the Lazarus Pit to bring her back," stated Nyssa quietly. "And it has left her . . . changed."

Thea remembered her own experience with the Lazarus Pit. It had been unlike anything else she had ever known and she had only been on the cusp of death and not all the way on the other side. What had it done to Sara?

At first, once she truly understood that Sara was alive, it was like some giant weight had been lifted off of Thea's soul. She hadn't killed the other girl or at least she was no longer dead, which had seemed like the same thing. But if Sara had come back changed, then it was still her fault.

With sudden tears filling her eyes, Thea slowly stepped forward. "Sara, I'm so, so sorry."

Part 5

Ever since she had come back, they had been rushing around from ancient Egypt to World War II New Orleans and then to modern day Metropolis. But with all her old memories gone, it had felt to Sara like she had been moving through an eternal fog. Nothing seemed quite real. The last thing, the only thing that seemed real was her time in Hell and that was something she really wanted to forget.

But now the fog seemed to lift a little. She had just heard a voice she was certain she knew.

A petite girl dressed in red leather was approaching her. She was wearing heavy glasses that hid a good deal of her face, but even with them blocking her view, Sara could tell she was crying.

Then the girl pulled off her glasses and Sara could see her eyes. Even though they were filled with tears, Sara knew those eyes. And suddenly, at least a few of her memories jolted into place.

"You killed me. YOU FUCKING KILLED ME!" Sara screamed and seemingly of its own volition her fighting staff was up and out and descending towards the other girl.

The other girl, her name was Thea Sara suddenly remembered, just stared at the staff with an expression that said she thought she deserved whatever was coming. And that expression almost made Sara falter. But the girl had killed her and it was because of her actions that Sara had spent an eternity in Hell.

At the last possible second, bare inches before the blow would land, a hard hand wielding a bow blocked it. Sara's eyes looked up and flashed with anger.

"Oliver, she killed me," Sara whispered in a tone that was deep, hard and menacing.

"I know, but she had been drugged. She didn't know what she was doing," Oliver said softly.

"Drugged?" Sara echoed. And looking at Thea, she simply knew it was true. Thea had been her friend. She knew the girl would never hurt her or anyone else of her own volition.

"It was Malcolm Merlyn, her father," said another voice.

Sara looked across and saw it was Nyssa. Ever since coming awake in the liquid-filled pool, she had been with the other girl. It had been hours and hours, yet she hadn't even recognized her.

"Nyssa?" Sara whispered and saw a giant smile sprout on the other girl's face.

Nyssa ran forward and pulled Sara into a tight embrace. "You're back. You're really back," she whispered.

After a few seconds, Sara pulled back until she could look into the other girl's face and take in her beautiful eyes, her pert little nose, and her luscious lips. She remembered those lips and the thousands of times they had kissed in the past. Quickly, she leaned in until her lips touched Nyssa's. The resulting kiss was almost enough to make her forget her time in Hell. Almost.

The kiss may have lasted for minutes or maybe only seconds, but eventually it had to end. As Sara pulled back, her eyes flicked to Oliver.

"So, I'm dead for like two minutes and you go and marry my girl."

Sara saw Oliver actually blush.

"It was necessary as part of the plan to defeat Ra's al Ghul," Oliver choked out lamely.

"Yeah, I'm sure," replied Sara trying to maintain a sarcastic tone, but knowing she was failing miserably.

Sara turned back to Nyssa who still had her arms wrapped tightly about her. "So, who's the better kisser, Oliver or me?"

"Do you even have to ask?" said Nyssa with another grin before she leaned forward to continue the kiss that had begun earlier.

As they continued to kiss, Sara heard Hunter begin to speak again in the background.

"As I was saying, I'm Rip Hunter. You obviously already know Sara and Nyssa. My other companions are Kendra Saunders and Fah."

Sara finally broke the kiss, knowing there would be time for kissing, and more, later. She turned back to the others to see Thea take the hand that had been rubbing at her eyes and move it to her ear.

With a grin and then a laugh, Thea turned to Hunter. "Our friend Cisco likes to give everyone code names. He thinks Kendra's should be Hawkgirl and Fah's should be The Sphinx."

More of Sara's memories returned. There had been a Hispanic kid named Cisco who had worked for S.T.A.R. Labs. She had only met him once, when they had been battling Slade at a S.T.A.R. Labs storage facility, but she suspected it was the same person.

Oliver was rolling his eyes, as though annoyed at this bit of harmless fun, when a sudden sense of dread rolled across Sara.

"Demons are coming," Sara whispered. She saw a disappointed look in Nyssa's eyes like she had expected this aspect of Sara to disappear when her memories returned. But Sara's memories of Hell felt just as real as ever. Whatever had happened to her when she had been brought back via the Lazarus Pits was something she knew she was going to have to live with for the rest of her life. She could now detect demons, whether anyone else believed her or not.

"Demons are coming!"

End of Chapter 7

Author's Note – Since this part of the story is set in the second half of 2016, I thought I would throw in some tech things that will probably start being available between now and then. It sounds like 2016 will potentially see the start of an avalanche of virtual reality goggles and augmented reality glasses. The augmented reality glasses Thea and Oliver are wearing in this chapter are an extrapolation of things a company named _Magic Leap_ is working on. Google them. In five years, these VR and AR devices could change how we interact with the Internet and the rest of the world as much as smartphones have done in the last ten. The nano-sensors are based on the DARPA _Smart Dust_ project.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 – Mosquito Squadron

Part 1

Stifling a yawn and trying to force herself fully awake, Laurel hit the _End Call_ icon on her phone and crawled out of bed. Training with Nyssa had been one of the things that had helped her get through the hard months immediately following Sara's death. Then one day the professional assassin had just disappeared from her life. No goodbye, no nothing. She had been almost heartbroken at the loss of yet another friend. But there had been nothing she could do. The only possible source of information on Nyssa's whereabouts was Malcolm Merlyn, the man responsible for the deaths of both her boyfriend, Tommy, and her sister, Sara. She would never willingly go to him for help.

Suddenly, out of the blue, over a year and a half later Nyssa calls her and says it is urgent that they meet and almost commanded her to be at Sara's gravesite out in Oakwood Cemetery in under an hour. It wasn't that she didn't want to see Nyssa, she did, but God, she was so, so tired. It was three in the morning and she had been asleep for barely an hour.

As she stumbled towards the bathroom to splash some water on her face before seriously thinking about getting ready, she once again found herself envying Oliver and Thea. For them, the job was done when they took down the bad guys. But for her, that was almost the easy part. The hard part was shepherding the criminals successfully through the entire legal process - making sure every I was dotted and every T crossed - so they would end up in Iron Heights, where they belonged.

It had been almost ten the previous evening when she had left Team Arrow's secret lair after patching Thea up. Then she had returned to her office and spent nearly four hours preparing for today's court appearance by a pair of criminals she had helped to take down the previous week. Now, she had to rush out to the cemetery. Even if whatever Nyssa wanted took less than an hour, she would still be rushing to make it back to her office in time to finish preparations for the nine o'clock court date. And she had promised to meet Barbara Gordon for a breakfast meeting, too. Definitely, if whatever Nyssa wanted took very long, she was going to have to push the meeting with Barbara to dinner, although from what she remembered, Barbara had a late afternoon flight back to Gotham, so that might not work either. Damn, like so many other times recently, she wished the day was at least six hours longer.

Since Nyssa hadn't said anything about coming ready for a battle, after a fast shower and a quick dash of makeup, Laurel slipped into one of her gray power suits for the court appearance, assuming she might not get a chance to change again, only compromising with a set of sneakers in place of her heels for the potential trek through the cemetery. Still, since joining Team Arrow, she had become a master at the art of getting ready fast. Exactly sixteen minutes after her feet first touched the floor beside the bed, she was out the door juggling a coffee cup and a bagel in one hand, her briefcase and heels in the other, and with her oversized purse containing a few emergency weapons over her shoulder.

At three-thirty in the morning the traffic was light, reducing the travel time to the cemetery to a quick twenty minutes. Deciding she shouldn't be the only one up at this ungodly hour, she called her assistant to get her started on some of the tasks that still needed to be accomplished before the court appearance. In the old days, waking Carrie this early would have bothered her. But ever since she had been bumped from assistant D.A. to chief D.A. four months earlier with the death of D.A. John Sullivan, she had had to dump more and more of her tasks on Carrie. So far, the girl, who was barely six months out of law school and still studying for the Bar, was holding up well. She hoped that continued to be the case, as she definitely didn't have time to be breaking in a new assistant.

Besides, she needed something to distract herself from thoughts of the upcoming meeting with Nyssa. The assassin hadn't given a single clue about what she wanted and why they had to meet way out at the cemetery. But that was typical Nyssa; she always held her cards tight to the vest.

Thinking back, their last conversation before Nyssa had disappeared had been about Nyssa's nascent plan to take out Merlyn. Nyssa hated the man for both killing Sara and supplanting what she thought was her rightful place at the head of the League. God, Laurel hoped Nyssa wasn't here seeking her help in some move against Merlyn. She still hated Merlyn for what he had done to Tommy and Sara, but she had finally accepted they were gone and that going up against Merlyn wasn't going to bring either of them back and would probably just get her killed as well. However if Nyssa was looking for help she knew the assassin would never get it from Oliver. Merlyn was Thea's father and ensuring Thea's happiness was more important to Oliver than seeking revenge for things in the past. And with the ongoing situation with H.I.V.E., none of them needed to get drawn into a new confrontation with the League.

Laurel had just ended the call with Carrie when the main entrance to the cemetery came into view. Turning in, Laurel followed the familiar set of paths that led to Sara's gravesite tucked away in one of the further corners of the sprawling cemetery.

In the early days, when the headstone was first placed after they had believed Sara had gone down with the Queen's Gambit, Laurel hadn't come out here often, usually only when forced to accompany one or both of her parents. But after Sara's real death, Laurel had been out here often. Well, in the beginning it had been almost once a week, but slowly over time the frequency of her visits had dropped. She now realized it had been almost two months since the last time and it left her feeling more than a little guilty.

Shutting down the engine, Laurel just sat there for a minute gripping the steering wheel as the memories of that horrific night returned, feeling as fresh as they had the first time. She had been in the alley when Sara's body had tumbled from the darkness above. It had landed bare feet in front of her with a sickening squelch. Even in the near total darkness, she had clearly seen the arrows protruding from Sara's chest and the blank, glassy stare of her vacant eyes. She had instantly known her sister was dead, but that reality had been nearly impossible to accept. She had spent long minutes just hugging her until Sara's body had started to turn cold. Finally, she had realized she had to do something. She couldn't just leave Sara's body in the alley unattended and she couldn't call 911 because the world at large thought Sara had been dead for years. If she was discovered freshly dead now it would have raised impossible questions.

She hadn't been able to think of anything to do but take her sister's body back to the Lair. Getting it into the car and then through the club and down the long, steep stairs had been one of the hardest things she had ever done. Or so it had seemed until they had had to take Sara's body out to the cemetery and dig a fresh hole in front of the old headstone and lower her sheet-wrapped body into the ground.

Laurel was still sitting in her car, lost in the horrors of that night, when another car pulled up behind hers. Quickly, as the other car's headlights flickered off, she grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her face. Doubtlessly, it would be Nyssa and she didn't need the other girl seeing her like this. It had been almost two years since they had lost Sara and she shouldn't still be letting herself get so emotional.

With one final swipe at her eyes, Laurel unlatched the car door and pushed it open. Climbing out, she was startled when a familiar voice accosted her.

"Laurel?"

"Dad? What are you doing here?"

"I'm guessing we both got calls from Nyssa. Do you have any idea what she wants or why she chose this meeting place?"

Laurel shook her head and then glanced in the direction of Sara's grave, but a small group of evergreens blocked the view from the road. She leaned back into her car and grabbed her purse. From it, she extracted a small flashlight. She had been out here at night before, although it had been a long time, and she knew the decorative lantern-style lights lining the roadway weren't bright enough to reach the secluded location of Sara's grave.

No other cars were visible, but that didn't mean Nyssa wasn't already here; the assassin's car would doubtlessly be located somewhere else for a stealthy departure in case of an emergency.

"Come on, Dad. If she's here, she will doubtlessly be waiting by the grave," said Laurel, just barely avoiding stumbling over the last word.

As they walked, Laurel glanced over at her father. Like her, he was already dressed in his uniform so he could segue straight from the cemetery to the rest of his day. The changes from his old captain's uniform were subtle, only a little more braid here and there. Like her, he had also been recently promoted – he to Chief of Police. After the personal and career ups and downs they had both experienced, it was almost hard to believe they were now the two highest ranking members of Starling's Law Enforcement Divisions.

Rounding the trees, Laurel's eyes darted straight to Sara's tombstone located right by the cemetery's high back wall. Lit by the pale moonlight, she immediately spotted the white clad figure standing in front of the marker staring down at it. In the middle of the night, deep in the confines of a cemetery, the first thing that popped into Laurel's head was that she was seeing a ghost, as the silhouette seemed a perfect match for her dead sister's. She knew ghosts weren't real, but after all the other strange, bizarre, and impossible things she had seen in the last few years, finding the ghost of her sister standing by her grave didn't seem an impossible leap.

"Sara," whispered her father from beside her. He, too, must have seen the resemblance.

Suddenly, Laurel found herself running forward; glad she was wearing slacks instead of a tight skirt.

It seemed to take only moments to cover the hundred feet from the trees to the grave, yet in the end both she and her father paused ten feet short of the woman still standing with her back towards them and her face turned down towards the marker. From ten feet, it was obvious the person before them was real, not a ghost, and yet the silhouette still impossibly reminded Laurel of her sister.

The girl must have finally sensed their arrival as she abruptly turned around. The flashlight Laurel still held loosely in one hand played directly on the girl's face lighting it and her blonde hair so that she looked more angel than human.

"Sara?" whispered Laurel's father again, his strangled voice filled with impossible incredulity.

"Yes, Dad, Laurel. It is really me. I'm back."

Part 2

"Are you ready?" asked Hunter.

Thea nodded and then glanced once again at her new teammates.

They were standing in front of the open doorway or portal or whatever you wanted to call the time displacement device that dominated one end of Hunter's main 31st century laboratory. Thea had passed through the doorway once before to reach the lab from the Starling City of her own time. Hunter had recruited her to help with another of his _small_ projects and had said she would be back home before dawn. Of course, what she hadn't fully grasped was that a lot longer than a few hours could pass at the other end of a time jump.

Already, she had been here for over a week. Hunter had said it was necessary that they all get to know each other if they were going to be able to work as a cohesive team, however she suspected part of it might have been to give her time for her injuries to heal from her encounters with the Mirakuru-enhanced men. Definitely, if she was going to spend some time recuperating, this was the place. Hunter had medical technology far beyond anything they had back home. Not only were her injuries healed, but all the accumulated scars from the last couple of years were gone, too. Perhaps little low-cut, backless dresses could once more be in her future. And she felt stronger, faster, and sharper than she had ever felt before, too.

But all the time hadn't been spent on healing. They had done several day-long exercises in Hunter's cool holo-simulator battling impossible seeming monsters. It definitely had given their small team time to bond.

And she had needed it. The only person she had known before was Cisco. Now, he stood next to her with a backpack filled with tools, spare parts, and an assortment of gadgets they might need.

Standing next to Cisco was Kendra Saunders in all her flightworthy glory. Cisco liked to give everyone nicknames when they were in their hero guises and had dubbed Kendra, Hawkgirl. The term seemed to fit her, particularly since the black metallic mask/headpiece she wore did look reminiscent of some bird of prey.

Thea had been surprised to learn Hunter had recruited Kendra from 1943 barely eighteen hours before they had arrived in Starling to save her and Oliver's butts. And talking to the girl, it had quickly become obvious she was from a different time. It had almost been like meeting someone from an old movie; Kendra was so shy and deferential. However once they started doing the combat simulations and Kendra donned her cowl and wings; it was like the girl morphed into someone completely different – a person brimming with self-confidence and insane fighting abilities.

Besides Hunter, that only left Fah, the fifth and final member of their small team. When Thea had first seen the giant sphinx back in the abandoned factory in Starling, she hadn't been able to believe her eyes. A creature like that shouldn't even exist. But that hadn't been half as shocking as discovering Fah was more than just a monstrous creature, but an actual girl with many of the same interests as her. Well, since she didn't have human-style arms, she had to do without many of the normal grooming aspects of being a girl and with a lion's body clothing wasn't an option, but Thea found they had a common interest in music or at least once she introduced Fah to late twentieth century and early twenty-first century styles. Of course, the topic of music had helped to draw Kendra into the group as well and she had introduced Thea and Fah to Big Band music of the 1940s. When Cisco had been creating custom communication gear for Kendra and Fah that was compatible with the gear Team Arrow was already using, it hadn't been too hard to convince Cisco to add voice-controlled music capabilities.

Hunter started moving through the time-displacement doorway and Thea had to force her wandering thoughts back to the current situation. Passing through the time barrier was an eerie experience. To the naked eye, it was nearly invisible, but to the other senses it felt like you were passing through a two foot thick barrier consisting of transparent molasses. You had to push and shove your way through and the first time she had used it, Thea had thought she was going to be trapped halfway and suffocate. She couldn't imagine what the experience would be like to someone who suffered from severe claustrophobia.

While Hunter's lab was well-lit, the destination on the other side had turned out to be as dark as night. This hadn't been obvious as the time displacement device didn't let you see through. From the lab side, the interface surface looked like a light yellow stretch of wall just like the adjoining areas. And from the down-time side, it had a nearly black surface in keeping with the surrounding nighttime outdoor environment.

As she had learned over the preceding week, Hunter was always extremely sparing with the details of the mission, claiming knowing too much about the future, or in this case the past, was dangerous. Therefore all he had said was that they were going to rescue Ray Palmer.

Thea had only met the billionaire a couple of times. First, when he had ended up officiating at Digg and Lyla's wedding and then a couple of times after they had both been sucked into the secret world of Team Arrow. Ray had seemed like a pleasant enough guy although geeky to the extreme. In fact, he reminded her more of Cisco than the marginally geeky Felicity. Well, like the person Cisco would be if he had billions of dollars in the bank with no constraint on how he could use it. Who else would buy an entire chain of electronic stores just to get one employee to work for him?

Ray had disappeared roughly eighteen months earlier, shortly after the old Ra's al Ghul had been killed and her father had taken his place as the head of the League. A large explosion had occurred late one night in the Palmer Technologies Tower in downtown Starling, the building that once had been the headquarters of Queen Consolidated. Security records showed Palmer entering the forty-eighth floor lab two hours before the explosion but showed no record of him leaving. No forensic evidence had been found to place him in the building at the time of the explosion, but with all the chemicals housed in the lab, the fire had been extremely hot and could explain the lack of remains. The police and other investigators knew nothing of Ray's secret flying suit or that the security cameras on the roof had been switched off, so it was possible Ray had flown away before the explosion, but if that was the case, it seemed like he would have gotten word to someone – Felicity, if no one else. But there hadn't been a single hint that the billionaire had survived.

Thea finally finished forcing her way through the time barrier and had a chance to look around. She immediately recognized that they were standing near the edge of the large grassy plaza in front of the old Queen Consolidated building in downtown Starling, but something instantly felt wrong about everything. She looked up at the familiar skyscraper, and while she rarely came down here at night to see it from this angle or in this light, it seemed to stretch much, much further into the sky than it should and not by a mere few extra stories. No, the building suddenly felt at least a hundred, maybe a thousand times taller than it should. She could barely even make out the large Palmer Technologies logo, it seemed so far away.

"Hunter, what's going on?" Thea asked.

"Wait for it," he replied, his gaze fixed on some spot high on the side of the skyscraper.

Just then, a massive explosion ripped out through the side of the building far, far above. The ground shook like there had been an earthquake and both Fah and Hawkgirl temporarily lifted slightly into the air.

"Cisco, are you picking up Palmer's suit?" asked Hunter urgently.

Thea turned and saw Cisco was holding another of the many gadgets she had seen him use over the last couple of years. She had been a big fan of MacGyver when she had been a kid, mostly because the young Richard Dean Anderson had been so hot. Where he had seemed able to build almost any kind of mechanical device given a few pieces of metal, plastic, and the ever present duct tape, Cisco seemed able to do the same for electronic devices given a bin full of old capacitors, resistors, and used circuit boards. Now, he was holding something with the screen from an old iphone on the front and several small twirling antennas sticking out of the top.

"Yes. It just landed somewhere in the field in front of us. Although I don't understand why I'm getting a distance reading of five kilometers, as that would put it way across town."

"Okay, boys and girls," began Hunter. "My historical records indicate Palmer was experimenting with some new capabilities he had just added to his suit. He had come up with a revolutionary way to cause the suit and its wearer to shrink in size, and not just a little. With this first generation prototype, he could have reached a size where he would be roughly one millimeter tall."

"Holy shit," whispered Cisco.

"Ah, what is that in English, please?" asked Thea.

"He would be able to dance on the head of a pin like a proverbial angel," said Cisco with a frown, as his gaze suddenly swept around.

"Ah, Hunter . . ." began Cisco with a now worried expression on his face.

"As Cisco is beginning to suspect, my time-displacement equipment can optionally change the size of anyone who passes through it. It uses a different approach than Palmer's; it's based on the technology Brainiac used to shrink Kandor and the other cities he stole from across the galaxy, but perhaps that is a tale for another time. Suffice it to say, we have all been reduced by a similar factor. If Palmer's suit protected him and he was blown clear of the building and if he had stayed full-sized, he would have been discovered within minutes.

"Since he was never found he must have successfully reduced himself in size," continued Hunter. "The only way we were going to be able to find him, and treat any injuries, was if we are on the same scale."

"You . . . you shrank us?" asked Thea, as her eyes darted wildly about. Things she was seeing now were making a sickening sort of sense. "No one is going to see or notice us if we are the size of a pinhead. What if they step on us?"

"If we are stepped on, we will be dead. So we need to move fast and make sure that doesn't happen. Now, the first responders to the fire will be here in three minutes forty-five seconds," replied Hunter, as he moved over and started climbing onto Fah's back. "Cisco and Thea, you are going to have to join me. The only way we can reach Palmer in a reasonable amount of time is by flying."

In seconds, Cisco and Thea had joined him and they were zooming forward. Cisco was sitting in the front, feeding Fah and Hawkgirl directions thru their earpieces. He had bestowed the giant creature with the title, The Sphinx, yet he was careful to call her by her real name. Of course, Thea had been present the one and only time Cisco had called her The Sphinx and Fah's eight inch claws had come out and dug deep furrows into the floor. That had been enough to convince them all to never screw with her.

They probably weren't flying more than a few inches above the grass, but at their present size it felt like they were flying at a height of at least several thousand feet. Thea didn't think she had a fear of flying, but then she had never flown on the back of a winged creature until the last few days and then they had never climbed to more than thirty feet above the ground. Now, she couldn't help but tighten her grip as she used Fah's fur to maintain what suddenly seemed like a very precarious position.

After a minute, Thea started to notice a high pitched buzzing sound that didn't seem to be caused by the wind whipping by her face. Rapidly, it got louder.

"Ah, guys, what's that noise?"

"Oh, my God," exclaimed Kendra from where she was maintaining position slightly above and to the left of the sphinx. "It is some kind of giant winged creature. And it's heading this way."

Thea suddenly saw it, too, through her light enhancing goggles. It was like something straight from a nightmare. Compared to their sudden diminutive state, it looked almost the size of a jetfighter, but it was definitely some kind of monster insect with rapidly beating wings, a three segmented body, six dangling legs, and a long sharp tube where a mouth should be in its horror of a face.

"It's a mosquito," stated Hunter, the perpetual calm he always seemed to convene now gone. "Fah, you have to get us down into the grass."

Even as Fah dove straight down, Thea couldn't get the image of the stinger-like tube out of her mind. Like everyone, she had been bitten by mosquitoes countless times growing up. But this monster was so big, its feeding tube had to be half the diameter of Thea's abdomen. If it managed to get the feeding tube into any of them, it would suck out all their internal organs in a second. What the hell had Hunter gotten them into?

Fah and Hawkgirl reached the grass still ahead of the mosquito and quickly started on a darting, weaving course heading in the general direction Cisco was still calling out. The individual blades of grass seemed almost the size of sequoias. And doubtlessly if Fah screwed up and hit one of the blades it would be just as bad as flying into one of the massive trees.

"The mosquito is still closing," shouted Hunter. "Thea, you are going to have to shoot it with one of your arrows."

Thea was more afraid than she had ever been, even compared to when she and Oliver had been facing the dozen Mirakuru-enhanced men and they had been out of arrows. But if she didn't pull it together and do something, they might all die.

Tightening the grip her legs were maintaining on Fah's back, she let go from where her hands had been gripping the giant sphinx's fur. Quickly, she pulled her bow from her back and grabbed an arrow from her quiver. Suddenly, she understood why Hunter had told her to go extremely heavy on the explosive arrows and why Fah had been fitted with a harness containing an additional dozen quivers of explosive arrows. He had known, or at least suspected what they might run into. Damn him, why had he chosen her for this mission? Both Nyssa and Oliver were equally good with the bow.

Forcing herself to think in a scale she could grasp, the giant mosquito had closed to within what felt like thirty feet – close enough to see its multifaceted eyes through her light-enhancing goggles. And the buzzing from its wings was now a deafening roar.

Quickly, Thea pulled back on the bow string and loosed.

It should have been impossible to miss a giant target from that range, but she had. Right as she fired, Fah had jinked in one direction and the mosquito in another. She suddenly realized hitting a flying target from the back of another flying creature was going to be harder than anything she had ever tried when chasing bad guys around the city.

All those thoughts raced through her mind in a fraction of a second. A second arrow and then a third were already in the air before the first arrow impacted somewhere far below and behind them and exploded in a blast of light and fire.

The second arrow was another miss, but the third arrow took the mosquito through the right eye. When it exploded, it blew half of the head away. Immediately, the mosquito crumpled in midair and then slammed into a blade of grass. In seconds, it was lost from sight.

Thea was just starting to breathe a sigh of relief when Kendra shouted through her headset.

"The explosion or the flash of light or something has attracted others. We have a whole swarm of mosquitos incoming."

"Cisco, how far are we from Palmer?" demanded Hunter.

"If we can maintain a straight course, two minutes," Cisco said. All the normal traces of levity were gone and Thea could hear the panic in his voice. She felt a rising panic, too.

"I don't think I can stop a whole swarm," stated Thea trying to sound calm while her goggles were already showing at least four more of the flying monsters closing to within one hundred feet. "Cisco, you need to pull something out of your bag of tricks. A giant bug zapper would be a good place to start."

"Right, let me think. Bugs . . . insects . . . bug zappers . . . ultrasonics. If I can project the right frequency, I should be able to drive them back."

"Hurry, Cisco," said Thea, as she started firing arrows as fast as she could at the closest bugs as well as at the nearest blades of grass. She quickly hit two mosquitos and exploding, falling blades of grass took out another pair. That only left about seventy-five more closing on them from the rear and both sides.

She could hear Cisco and Hunter moving around and talking as they worked on creating some new device, but she didn't have time to even listen. All she could do was try to fire as fast as she could.

Kendra had shifted to Fah's right as soon as it became apparent that from her seated position Thea could only cover targets coming in from the rear and the left sides. Thea didn't have time to spare Kendra more than the occasional glance, but saw that her most frequent weapon, the mace, had morphed into a long metallic whip. The mosquitoes were the scariest thing Thea could imagine, far more scary than the monsters in Hunter's holo-simulation back in his lab, but at least they were extremely fragile. A hit by an explosive arrow anywhere on the head or body or wings was enough to take them down. And a crack of Kendra's whip was equally effective, but its relatively short range meant Kendra had to get scarily close to her targets.

The running battle had to have lasted at least a minute and Thea had to have fired at least sixty arrows before the mosquitoes abruptly stopped, hovered in midair, and then started to fall back.

Thea let her bow droop to Fah's back as she fought to catch her breath. And now that the fighting was over for the moment, she started shaking like a leaf. Her hands were shaking so bad she probably couldn't hit the side of a barn from ten paces let alone a flying monster insect while she herself was airborne.

"Hunter, why did you bring me and not Oliver?" asked Thea. Nothing rattled her brother. Well, maybe these mosquitoes would rattle even him just a little.

"Weight limitations, he weighs at least a hundred pounds more than you. If Palmer is incapacitated or his suit is non-functional, Fah is going to have to carry him, in addition to us, back to the time displacement device and the heavier her load the lower her speed and maneuverability. Another hundred pounds might make the difference as to whether we make it or not."

Thea thought to ask why he hadn't chosen Nyssa instead of her, but decided he would still put it down to weight or something else. Nyssa was taller and more solidly built and probably outweighed Thea by twenty-five pounds.

However exactly why he had chosen her over the others really didn't matter. She was here now and there was nothing she could do but see things through.

Therefore she forced her senses to start scanning their surroundings again even as she tried to reach the meditative state her father had taught her to calm her racing heart and shaking hands. She had never considered mosquitoes a serious threat before tonight. They had, at least temporarily, retreated, but this little plot of grass, which probably didn't measure more than twenty by thirty feet back in the real world, could hold more threats to them now than she had ever imagined.

As they flew on, heading on a more direct path towards Palmer's elusive signal, Thea's thoughts wandered to what the other her, the Thea of this time, might be doing at this moment. It was late evening and if she remembered correctly, the explosion had occurred on a Thursday or a Friday, so she would most likely have been at her club. Suddenly, her life back then seemed so simple and easy. Okay, she had been stabbed by Ra's al Ghul and dragged all the way to Nanda Parbat to be cured via the Lazarus Pits. And she had been part of Team Arrow for a few weeks. But she had never dreamed her life would one day involve battling aircraft-sized flying insects.

"I see him," shouted Fah suddenly and so loudly, Thea didn't need her earpiece to hear the giant sphinx.

"Bring us in close, but don't land until we can scope the situation out," commanded Hunter.

The giant sphinx quickly slowed to a hover. Other than a quick glance down, Thea kept her gaze fixed outward. While Hunter and Cisco figured out their next move, someone needed to keep an eye out for other dangers.

"Damn," said Cisco. "He's caught in a spider's web."

"Fah, put us down, but land clear of the web. If it's fresh, I don't want us getting stuck," said Hunter.

The sphinx quickly landed. As the three of them slid off her back, Thea discovered they were standing atop a wide, uneven field of large boulders. It took a moment to realize this was what dirt looked like when you were shrunk to this scale.

The spider's web was vast. To Thea, it seemed to stretch as far as a football field. Each individual strand looked about the thickness of a piece of twine. For some reason, she had expected the strands to be even bigger when she was at this scale.

Fortunately, Palmer's brightly colored suit wasn't more than fifteen feet in from the edge near where Fah had landed and only five or six feet above the boulder covered terrain. Reaching him should be doable, unlike if he had landed much higher on the web.

"Do you have vital signs for him?" asked Hunter towards Cisco.

Even as Hunter spoke, Thea turned her attention to refilling her quiver from the stockpile on Fah's harness. She had used up all the arrows in her quiver and most of those from the closest three quivers on Fah's back. Once her quiver was full, she redistributed the remaining ones in the harness to locations that would be easier to reach. Then she turned her attention to their surroundings. If they all focused on the downed billionaire, something nasty could take them unawares. Even now, she could hear movement in the distance.

"Kendra, don't go too far, but how about making a quick sweep around our perimeter, for any new nasties," suggested Thea into her headset.

"Wilco," responded Kendra, sounding like a pilot from some old World War II movie.

"He's vitals are good," said Cisco in reply to Hunter's question after consulting another of the small devices from his backpack. Then looking up he shouted, "Ray, can you hear me? It's Cisco Ramon. We're here to rescue you."

"Yes," came a feeble shout from Palmer.

"Mr. Palmer," shouted Hunter. "My name is Rip Hunter. If you're not aware, you are caught in a spider's web. Please, don't shout or make any movements that might attract the spider. Give us a minute to see if we can restore communication to your suit and then see if we can figure out how to get you down."

Dropping his voice, he continued in Cisco's direction.

"The radial spokes of the web are of a different kind of silk than the spiral threads," Hunter began, sounding like a teacher giving a classroom lecture rather than someone involved in a life-or-death struggle against giant insects. "The spiral threads are the sticky ones used to ensnare prey. The radial spokes are not sticky and are the ones the spiders use to move around without getting stuck themselves. The radial spokes are very strong and stiff and support the ensnaring threads. They are also the ones that transfer vibrations which allow the spider to know when something has landed on the web."

"Aren't you just the sudden fount of knowledge," replied Cisco even as he typed furiously on a small laptop he had extracted from his backpack. "It might have been nice if you had shared a little of this before we started."

Then, abruptly, his tenor changed slightly as he continued. "Okay, I'm into his suit's electronics. The flight systems and what I assume are the new networks he has installed to change size are all offline and are going to remain offline until I can get the suit into a lab. But I should be able to get communications and basic exoskeleton strength capabilities working in thirty seconds."

"Ah, you better hurry guys," interjected Thea. "A giant centipede or millipede or something with about a zillion legs is coming out of the trees, I mean grass blades."

The giant boulder field that was the dirt was almost alive with small creepy, crawly things. But so far they had all been ignoring them, so Thea had been trying in turn to ignore them. But the new monster was impossible to ignore. It looked about the size of two eighteen-wheelers stretched end to end, if semis came equipped with hundreds of legs instead of wheels. The creature was still what felt like several hundred feet away and wasn't headed directly in their direction, but she pulled an arrow just in case. Although, against such a massive creature, she doubted a single explosive arrow would bring it down and might only draw its attention.

"Palmer is stretched across four of the sticky spiral strands, but he isn't directly touching any of the critical radial spokes," said Hunter after lowering a pair of high-tech binoculars he had pulled from his own smaller backpack. "We may be able to cut those strands loose and lower him to the ground without attracting the spider.

"And where is the spider anyway? I don't see it." Hunter continued. "Kendra, this is Hunter. Can you see the spider?"

"It's near the other end of the web and in the process of wrapping up another insect it caught. If you hurry, you may be able to get Palmer free before it's done."

Hunter quickly opened another pack on Fah's back and extracted what looked like a small gas-powered chainsaw and several short sections of aluminum pipe, which attached to the saw to allow him to hold the saw beyond arm's length.

"Come on," he shouted to Cisco and Thea before he moved towards the web, which started barely twenty feet in front of them.

Thea gave the giant centipede one last look before following the others. It had veered off on a different path and now only the last ten feet were visible. It looked like that was one monster they weren't going to have to worry about.

Hunter reached the web first climbing over and around the boulder like grains of dirt. The lowest sticky strand of web wasn't right at the ground and a three foot high gap existed at one location. Hunter slithered under it to reach the other side. Cisco and Thea quickly followed him as he then climbed over the next several boulders until he was directly under Palmer. The billionaire had landed on the other side of the web in a more or less upright position so that his feet were about five feet above the ground and his head about seven feet up. The backs of his legs were caught against two of the sticky threads. A third strand was across the middle of his back and a forth was attached to the back of his helmet.

As soon as he was in position, Hunter fired up the chainsaw. It made an ungodly amount of noise and Thea couldn't help but wonder what new monster the noise would attract. But it did quickly ripped through the lowest strand behind his leg on the left side. Hunter then moved to the same strand on the other side.

In moments, Hunter was through both strands supporting Palmer's legs and the lack of support caused his body to pivot into a fully upright position. And the extra weight on the two remaining strands caused them to stretch until his feet settled onto the large boulder directly under him.

As Hunter moved to the strand behind Palmer's back, the chainsaw sputtered and died.

"Damn. The thread is so sticky it has gummed up the chain," exclaimed Hunter dropping the now useless device in disgust.

"The spider is moving in your direction!" Kendra and Fah both shouted through their headsets at virtually the same time.

Thea pulled her sword from the scabbard on her back and tossed it to Hunter. "Use this. Start on the one on his helmet."

Next she pulled the dagger from her hip and handed it to Cisco. "Work on the one behind is back."

Then she pulled an arrow and shot through the web in the direction of a blade of grass further down the web in the direction where the spider had to be. The resulting explosion and lightshow might distract the spider for a few extra seconds. Deciding it wouldn't hurt; she fired two more arrows for an added distraction. With only fifteen arrows left in her quiver, she held the remainder in reserve in case of a more pressing need before she got back to Fah to replenish her supply.

Even with the extra keen steel of her blades, the tough silk strands were extremely difficult to cut. After thirty seconds with no visible progress, Cisco gave up with the dagger and pulled a miniature cutting torch from his backpack. The extremely hot flame quickly cut through the thread across Palmer's back. Cisco handed it to Hunter who just managed to get through the last strand on the helmet before the torch sputtered out of fuel.

"Hurry guys," shouted Kendra. "The spider is no more than forty feet from you and closing fast."

Thea didn't wait for the others or try to retrieve her now glue covered blades, but charged back the way they had come towards the waiting sphinx. She could see the spider now and it was on the outer side of the web. She couldn't do any good from the backside of the web, but once she was beyond the web she could lay down some cover fire.

She was just crawling under the last sticky strand when the weight of the approaching spider caused the strand to dip just enough to snag the back of her quiver and jacket. For a second, it felt like she was going to be stuck fast, but then she managed to undo the fasteners down the front of her jacket and slip out of it.

That quiver of arrows was now covered with the adhesive and she couldn't risk trying to retrieve it. At least her bow hadn't gotten lost or gummed up, she thought thankfully, as she darted across the uneven boulders towards Fah and the rest of their supply of arrows.

She reached Fah just as the men were struggling under the last strand that had nearly hung her up. And the spider was now within twenty feet of them, its mandibles clashing audibly. Quickly, she grabbed the nearest quiver and threaded it across her shoulders and then started firing.

The first shot passed over the head of the spider and barely grazed its much taller abdomen. It was enough to trigger the explosive, but it didn't seem to produce any useful effect.

Pausing to take a calming breath, Thea fired again, this time hitting the spider in the right eye, her intended target. The arrow exploded with a satisfying pop and flash of light, but it didn't seem to slow the spider either. The spider was substantially larger than the mosquitoes she had been battling earlier and since it didn't need an extremely light weight to fly, it was of much stouter construction.

The spider had eight legs and Thea shifted her aim to the root of the nearest one. The explosion from the next arrow sheared that leg completely off. But with the redundancy of seven more legs, it didn't stop the monster.

Palmer and Cisco were now clear of the web and running towards the sphinx, but Hunter was still working his way under the web. And the spider's gaping maw was within ten feet of the man.

Thea shifted her aim back to the spider's head, firing as rapidly as she could. She managed to get four arrows into the air before the first one impacted. It blasted off the right mandible. The second blew off the left mandible and the third and fourth struck directly in the gap between the left and right eyes.

With a screech that almost sounded human, the spider reared up on its back four legs, its front legs waving wildly. Thea launched three more explosive arrows into its now exposed soft underbelly. The force knocked the spider over backwards until it landed upside-down on its own web and got stuck in place. Its legs continued to jerk wildly for a few seconds before finally going limp.

Thea allowed herself to sag in relief for only a moment before reaching over and pulling a fresh quiver of arrows from Fah's back. Only six full quivers remained from what had felt like an inexhaustible supply when they had started out.

"Shit, shit, shit!" came a startled exclamation over Thea's headset. It took her a moment to realize it had to be Kendra. "The spider's egg sacks are bursting open. Hundreds, maybe thousands of baby spiders are headed in your direction. And by baby I mean they are only the size of Shetland ponies. They are incredibly fast. You need to get out of there now!"

Fah crouched down and Cisco and Thea scrambled up on her back. Palmer was just staring at the giant sphinx as Hunter continued to scramble over the boulder field in their direction.

"Palmer, how much does your suit weigh?" Shouted Hunter.

"About a hundred twenty pounds."

"Fah can't handle that much extra weight. Ditch as much of it as you quickly can."

Palmer didn't hesitate. He could always build another suit, but he couldn't do that if he was dead. He hit several quick-release latches and bits of metal, plastic and electronics fell away from his body. Quickly, he was left in just his helmet and a stretchy black body suit.

Cisco reached down a hand and helped the billionaire up even as Thea climbed to her feet and stood on Fah's back to get a clear line of fire. Hunter would need several seconds to reach them and the first of the baby spiders were almost to the edge of the web.

She fired into the nearest ones and the explosive arrows blew them apart. But the flood of small spiders was so great; it didn't look like it was going to be enough.

But Kendra suddenly swept in and started flaying her whip around. That and four more arrows from Thea bought Hunter enough time to make a desperate dive forward. Cisco caught one of his hands and Palmer the other.

Instantly, with a hard thrust of her giant wings, Fah lifted them twenty feet straight into the air nearly unbalancing the still standing Thea. Palmer grabbed her with his one free hand, giving her enough time to grab Fah's fur with a hand of her own before the next thrust of Fah's wings. This second mighty thrust had them high enough to be beyond the reach of any of the baby spiders.

Thea quickly got herself back into a seating position and then swept her gaze around, another arrow already notched in her bow. Cisco and Palmer meanwhile pulled Hunter up to safety.

"Kendra, do you see any other nearby hostiles?" asked Thea shakily, as she imagined what might have happened to her if she had fallen back to the ground now crawling with the baby spiders.

"Not at the moment," came the reply from the winged girl who had now taken up position to their right.

"Then let's head for the time displacement device so we can go home," said Hunter. "Fah, I think it is safest if we stay down in the shelter of the grass."

Fah turned and headed in the direction they had come.

Palmer had retained his helmet with its comm systems and overheard their exchange. "Time displacement device?"

"Yeah," said Cisco, some of his normal levity returning now that they were out of immediate danger. "We're headed _Back to the Future_."

End of Chapter 8

Author's Note

Whew! I wanted to get this chapter done before leaving for the long holiday weekend, so I've been writing up a storm the last couple of days. And I also wanted to get this chapter done before the _Antman_ movie is released since it will probably have some similarities. I assume that movie is going to feature a lot of ants, so I decided I would go with mosquitoes and spiders instead.

I had intended to include another bit from the meeting of Laurel and Sara, but this chapter has already run pretty long, so I'll save it for some future chapter.

Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter,

Duane


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 – Felicity AKA Schrödinger's Cat

Felicity stared at the man sitting in the oversized booth on the other side of the Club talking and laughing with Ray, Sara, Nyssa, Laurel, Kendra, Thea, and Cisco. Everything she had thought she had known about her life had just been turned utterly upside-down.

Within the past twenty-four hours both Sara and Ray had returned from the dead. Okay, technically Ray hadn't been dead, but he had been missing and presumed dead for eighteen months, which was almost the same thing. They both brought an unbelievable amount of baggage for her and Oliver, and yet, compared to the revelation she had just received about the man, the return of Sara and Ray paled to insignificance, well, at least for her.

Rip Hunter, Timemaster as he called himself, had blown into her life five days earlier. Unlike with everyone else, whom he had seemed to recruit when they were in some life-or-death peril, he had used a different carrot with her and Cisco, namely a laundry list of tech toys that had them almost drooling from the very beginning. And, of course, there had been the whole time travel aspect.

She had blithely met him out in the Catskills to help him set up Bruce Wayne's ski lodge as a base of operations in this time period. They had spent the better part of two days working together without him ever giving a hint of their true connection. No, it wasn't until her mother had unexpectedly turned up in Starling, at the club no less, a bare fifteen minutes earlier and had spotted him across the way that she had made the totally unexpected pronouncement.

"Oh . . . My . . . God, Felicity," Donna Smoak began while clutching Felicity's arm so hard it actually hurt. "I can't believe he's here. And how can he look exactly the same? I mean, it's been twenty-five years, but he can still easily pass for thirty."

Felicity had just come upstairs. She and Oliver had been standing at the bar waiting for their drinks before joining the others when her mother had entered the club, spotted them, and walked directly over.

She had followed the direction of her mother's gaze which led directly to the table with her friends. The _HE_ of her remark had to refer to one of the three men present. Since her Mom had met Ray on her first visit to Starling two years earlier, she doubted she was referring to him. And Cisco seemed unlikely as he still looked a lot younger than his actual twenty-six. That just left Hunter.

"Oliver, if you don't mind, I need to speak to my daughter in private for a minute," requested Donna. Her voice held a thoughtful tone Felicity rarely heard.

Their drinks had just arrived and Oliver picked up his bottle of beer. "Of course, Donna. When you have finished your conversation, please come join me and our friends."

After the whole business with the League of Assassins had finally ended, Oliver and Felicity had escaped Starling and had spent two whole glorious months just touring the quaint oceanfront villages dotting the Pacific Coast from California to Washington. No saving people. No battling bad guys. It had been a wonderful break from their old lives and the time alone together had helped to cement their relationship.

Towards the end, Oliver had insisted they spend some time in Vegas so he could get to know her mother. With no siblings and a father who had disappeared when she was little more than an infant, her Mom was the only family Felicity had. Oliver had felt it was important Felicity spend some quality time with her Mother, as he had twice learned the hard way you could lose a parent without a moment's notice.

They had spent a week in a luxurious suite at the Bellagio. Every day they had hung out with Donna and every evening they had taken in a show while she was working. As usual, Oliver had been right. After the things she had gone through with losing Sara, her brief relationship with Ray, and the events in Nanda Parbat, she cherished more than she had expected the time she had been able to spend with her mother. Oh, she hadn't divulged any of the deep, dark secrets she shared with Oliver, but her mother's insights had helped her to better grasp some of the emotions with which she had still been struggling.

"Who _he_ , Mom?" asked Felicity when Oliver was barely ten feet away; their conversation already safe due to the blaring, near-disco music the D.J. was currently blasting.

Donna used her chin to point in the direction of the table across the way. "Your . . . your father."

Felicity's father had left her and her Mom when she had been barely more than a baby. She had no memories of him and her mother hadn't kept a single photo after he had disappeared from their lives. All Felicity knew about him was what little her mother had told her and that hadn't gone much beyond repeatedly telling her that she had inherited her brains from him.

Felicity turned her attention back towards Hunter. He was laughing at something Cisco must have just said. He gave no indication he was aware of the two women watching him from the bar across the room.

Hunter certainly was intelligent enough to qualify based on what she had seen over the last few days. Oh, he didn't have her gifts with computers, but that could probably be chalked up to being from a different era. However he had run through some of the math behind his time displacement devices and what she could understand, most of it having gone over her head due to the use of symbols and equations a thousand years beyond anything currently available, it certainly supported the case that he was intelligent enough to have impressed her mother back when she had been a girl of twenty.

And knowing about his time displacement equipment allowed Felicity to understand what could have happened in a way her mother couldn't. If Hunter had traveled back in time in his recent past and had hooked up with her mother, it would explain how he could look exactly the same as what her mother remembered from twenty-five years earlier. Well, given Felicity's current age they would have had to have hooked up more like twenty-eight years ago.

The thought of Hunter and her mother together was almost enough to freak her out. Of course her mother would have had to have had sex with her father. But with her father long gone, it was a topic she didn't have reason to think about often. However with the pair of them both in the room, it was a thought she suddenly couldn't get out of her head. Everyone had sex, that's where babies came from. She knew her mother was no saint. But even though she had always chosen to dress like a high class hooker, she had never flaunted her sexual activities in front of Felicity when she had been growing up, so Felicity had never had a reason to think about that specific topic too much. But now, she couldn't seem to think about anything else. Her mom and Hunter having sex, Felicity knew her cheeks had to be glowing red.

"Are you sure?" Felicity blurted out before she could stop herself. God, of course her mother would be sure, she was hardly likely to be confused about something like that particularly if Hunter looked the same now as he did then. This could quickly turn as awkward as the stupid sexual innuendoes she had continually blurted out to Oliver back in the early days.

Donna nodded and Felicity could see she was steeling herself to go over and confront Hunter. When she set off, Felicity couldn't do anything but nervously stride along at her side.

Right as they reached the table, the current song ended. In the temporary lull, it wasn't necessary to shout to be heard across the width of the table.

"Daniel, this is an unexpected surprise," stated Donna, her tone hinting at an underlying tension.

Everyone glanced around, as there was no one by that name present, then everyone's gaze returned to Donna. Felicity's own gaze took in the whole table, but was mostly focused on Hunter. Oliver's eyes showed a questioning expression, but other than him, only Ray's showed a hint of recognition at seeing Donna Smoak.

Felicity couldn't believe it when she realized Hunter's expression was as blank as everyone else's. He definitely should recognize her Mom. Okay, she might be twenty-five years older than when they had been together, but she couldn't have changed that much. No, her mother's vanity made her keep herself in good shape; she could easily pass for thirty-eight rather than her actual forty-eight. Her face showed only the first hints of lines and she still looked much as she did in old photos Felicity had seen.

So if Hunter had been with her for at least several years, how could he not recognize her?

Then, abruptly, Felicity understood and she was certain her cheeks must have instantly gone straight from a bright red blush to the white of a ghost.

Hunter didn't recognize her Mom because he hadn't yet met her, hadn't yet traveled back in time to be with her.

She had assumed those events would have been in Hunter's past just like they were in her mother's and her pasts. But there was no reason his trip back in time couldn't still lay in his future.

From somewhere a line from one of the old Terminator movies popped into Felicity's head. Someone had commented how sending terminators back to kill Sarah Connor was like Skynet was attempting to perform a retroactive abortion on John Connor. Her current situation suddenly felt like the exact opposite. If Hunter didn't travel back in time at some point in the future, she would never have been born in the past.

It reminded her of a long ago conversation with Cisco. Due to his metahuman gift, he sometimes had memories of alternate timelines that no one else did. He had told her about one such timeline where Team Flash had battled someone Cisco called _The Reverse Flash_. The Reverse Flash had been a time traveler from the future, Eobard Thawne, who had been masquerading as Dr. Wells. When his ancestor, Eddie Thawne, had killed himself, Eobard had blinked out of existence.

If Hunter never traveled back in time to be with her mother, or if something happened and he died before then, what would happen to her? Would she blink out of existence just like this Eobard had done? Would it be like she only existed in some closed-off timeline that only Cisco might remember?

Her eyes immediately jumped back to Oliver. What would his life have been like if she had never existed? She had seen _It's a Wonderful Life_ countless times growing up and the riff on that movie so many TV shows had done where the central character imagined what everyone else's lives would have been like without them. Would Oliver have been happy without her? Would he have found love somewhere else? Would he even have survived without her watching his back?

It was like the quantum mechanics thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger. The cat in the box could be considered both alive and dead until the lid was lifted and someone looked inside. And suddenly, Felicity felt like that cat – her entire existence was suddenly dependent on someone else's actions in the future.

Felicity realized keeping Hunter safe and ensuring he traveled back in time to be with her mother now had to be her number one priority. And if just thinking about Hunter and her mother together grossed her out, how was she ever going to be able to be the instigator?

Her eyes turned back to Oliver. She was going to have to get his help. She could never do it alone and he had almost as big of a stake in wanting success as she did. Had there ever been a more unlikely pair to play matchmakers than her and Oliver?

End of Chapter 9

Author's Note

I've been watching the _Legends of Tomorrow_ coverage at ComicCon. Other than announcing Hawkman would make an appearance (and it sounded more like as a guest star than as a regular cast member), very few new details of the plot seemed to have been revealed. Certainly, nothing that is drastically inconsistent with my story. Whew. I think it means I can continue to head in whatever direction I want at least until the season premieres of _Arrow_ and _The Flash_ in October.

Recently, I rewatched the episode where Felicity's Mom guest starred and it reminded me they still haven't revealed much about Felicity's Father. So I thought making Hunter be her father would be an interesting twist for this story and would take the time-travel aspects in a direction I have rarely seen. I mean, there are lots of stories about someone going back in time and killing their grandfather and then learning whether or not they continued to exist. I thought it would be fun to do the opposite where Felicity has to ensure Hunter goes back in time or she might simply vanish like the Reverse Flash did.

Have a great day,

Duane


End file.
